MDF, Letron and chipboard differences and how to distinguish them! (Part 2)

Practical ways to distinguish Letron, chipboard and MDF

Since we briefly took a glimpse of these products materials in previous part of this article, in this article we explore some method to easily detect Letron from chipboard and MDF as well from these two.

Letron is not very resistant to scratches, moisture and abrasion, but it is still one of the most popular coatings for covering chipboard or even MDF.

So, quite frankly, Letron is a thin coating that is glued to wood products such as chipboard to improve its final appearance; But for this reason, chipboard accompanied by a Letron paper cover is also called a Letron chipboard. Therefore, whenever we talk about Letron wood material, we mean chipboard covered with Letron coating.

The way to distinguish letron, chipboard and MDF from each other

Note that generally it is not possible to distinguish these wood products from the veneer, because all the main texture of the wood is covered by veneers of different thicknesses. Therefore, the only way to distinguish these cases from each other is to see naked or peeled wood without its cover. In this case, the distinction between MDF and chipboard is quite clear and it is easy to distinguish between the two.

So, if a person is faced with a cross section of chipboard or MDF, he can recognize the material, even at a small thickness of the board. For example, in the case of boards where the main wide surfaces are coated but the side diameters, which have a thicker strip, still show the raw texture inside the board. But after coating and final finishing of the boards, it is not possible to identify their type of material for the customer and the buyer who is not in the process of manufacturing and only sees the final product. In such cases, the part of the wood that shows its raw texture must be found.

For example, the hinge of a cabinet or cupboard door is a place that has no special coating and shows the raw texture of the inner board. In the same way, the customer and the buyer can observe the raw texture of the interior wood before installing the hinges on the wooden door of the cabinet or cupboard or similar products.

In this case, if a person is exposed to chipboard, he can easily recognize the pieces of wood with his eyes. It is the presence of these small, thin pieces of wood that makes the overall texture of chipboard rough and inhomogeneous. Also, no matter how hard you try to make the chipboard, the final product can not have a smooth and polished surface. Because the size and shape of the chips in the chipboard are different from each other, and this prevents the creation of a perfectly smooth surface.

Of course, this lack of smoothness of the chipboard surface is not to the extent that the veneer does not adhere well to it, but in any case, the ups and downs of the chipboard surface can be seen closely with the naked eye.

On the other hand, the inner texture without MDF veneer is a homogeneous texture, almost one color and smooth. As mentioned, the shape of the very chopped and fine MDF chips makes the MDF cut look smooth, even, uniform and much softer than chipboard.

If we touch the chipboard, its rough texture is felt under the skin, and even a grain of wood chips or chips may enter the skin of the hand, but the only thing that the skin of the hand feels in contact with MDF is probably wood powder or pollen, which would eliminate due to the final coating of the board.

Finally, the detection of Letron depends on the internal core. If the core is a chipboard base, the present product is considered to be Letron, otherwise it is MDF.