featherboards - is MDF or plywood ok to use to make one?

[Mike Gager]

i have a bunch of scrap plywood and mdf but not a lot of scrap hardwood. can i use the mdf or ply to make some featherboards for my table saw?

[Pat Germain]

You could certainly make them. But I think you'll be very disappointed in the results.

Feather boards must be springy. This is easy with just about any kind of wood lying around the shop. Except for MDF, OSB and ply. You won't get the nice, springy action from those materials.

Feather boards are something you're going to use again and again for many years. It's worthwhile to pick up some hardwood for this purpose. Of course, you can use something cheap and unattractive. Stop by your local hardwood supplier and see what they have on clearance. Maybe they'll even give you a discount if you find a particularly rough and ugly board.

[Bob Vallaster]

MDF---no.
Plywood---not the best material.

Wooden featherboards are made with cuts which rive the grain. The feathers are like stacked tongue depressers, each having the capability for flex. If you were to cut feathers across the grain, they wouldn't survive the first pass without fracturing.

MDF has no grain. Plywood has about 50% that of a board. Neither has the bending resilience you need in this application.

Solid wood, clear of knots, with grain running the length of the board.

BobV

[Chip Lindley]

Use a straight grained (springy) hardwood! Ash would be Great! But I have had the same ol' hard maple featherboard for year (missing a couple of feathers) Even pine would be better than ply or MDF, IMO!

[Mike Gager]

alright, that solves that! thanks guys :)

[Bob Wingard]

Before I give an unconditional "NO" to your question, it would be OK, but not ideal to use MDF & Ply under certain conditions. If you were making very tall featherboards, and wanted to layer the MDF/Ply into a sandwich from which to cut your featherboards, it would probably work fine. To do so, I would recommend at the minimum 2 layers of ply with a layer of MDF in the middle. A bit of experimentation to determine what is the best finger length would be in order.

I tend to use whatever I have laying around, and have made a few using Lexan with MDF in between as a spacer. I've built them about 3" tall this way for resawing with a tall fence, and they worked just fine. I cut the fingers extra long to make their grip more gentle.

A lot depends on what you want to use them for.


<<<__ Bøb __>>>

[David Keller NC]

Mike - think you've already gotten your answer, but I would add that MDF would be very dangerous to use as a featherboard, particularly on a table saw. The fingers will snap off quite easily, and when that happens, the wood that it's pressing against will likely spring back into the blade, causing kickback. Plywood's better, but as the other poster's noted, the strongest "fingers" are a strong, springy hardwood like ash, hickory, and oak.

[John Thompson]

I've used oak.. hickory.. poplar.. pine.. and name about any other common wood as mentioned. You got your answer on why not MDF or ply even though the ply would work but not ideally. I do use ply for my main base in spring-boards but... the faces that touch the stock are made of wood which is springy as mentioned.

Sarge..

[Gregory Lyons]

I agree with what the others have said about not using MDF. I would like to recommend another alternative though: polyethylene.

I don't know for certain if they're UMHW or not, but I picked up a couple of white poly cutting boards from Harbor Freight based on a tip from another forum I used to frequent. The feather boards that I made with this stuff are nice and springy and they hold up really well to abuse. If you decide to go this route, grab several of them. I've found the material quite usefull for all manner of shop fixtures.

~g

[Rick Thom]

I like the plastic ones too. From time to time they appear as bonus offers or in the discount bins etc making them about as cheap to buy as make.
The 'high tech' jobs are pretty nice, like this magnetic guy that uses rare earth magnets to secure itself where you want it on a cast iron surface. It also can apply pressure laterally and/ or vertically without any extra clamps to fuss around with. These aren't cheap.. @ $50 each, but a good piece to have around the shop http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=51234&cat=1,43000.
As an aside, I don't want to have or use feather boards that don't work properly, not easily clamped, don't apply even consistent pressure or are likely to come un-fixed etc. I rely on them for my safety.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I've used Plywood and it worked just fine. I still have those plywood featherboards.

MDF will fail rather quickly.

[Steve Clardy]

I use oak scraps usually, as that is what I have the most of laying around.

[Greg Hines, MD]

Wood Magazine featured a router table fence in the October 2004 issue, and they featured an MDF feather board as one of its accessories. I never made one, though I did base my fence on that one, though it did not appear to be that unreliable from their description.

It was a curved feather board, with bandsawn kerfs. Perhaps because the fingers were relatively thick, they would hold up better.

Personally, I have four Bench Dog feather boards, and would not replace them with any other kind. They are easy to set, and give very consistent pressure to the workpiece.

Doc

[Mike Gager]

found an article in the sept/oct 08 issue of fine woodworking where they use plywood for a featherboard on a router table

heres the article

114128

[Gary Breckenridge]

Free mdf for a worthless featherboard or $1 for a hardwood featherboard that works. That's a difficult choice. Check the price on a Magswitch featherboard, $45 , and then make one out of cherry being careful on grain direction.:cool:

[Art Kelly]

I used MDF for a compression chuck on my lathe.

Once.

The thing detonated:eek:, the work went flying:eek:, and I have still not found one of the four pieces of the chuck:eek:.

I admit to doing something stupid.:o

It does not fail gracefully.

All of my featherboards are from red oak purchased at the BORG. I've never thought about using anything else, but most of my TS and RT work is pretty basic. For tall feather boards, I'd use 1/8" birch plywood--several pieces, maybe 3 or 4. One-eighth inch MDF would be a good separator.:rolleyes:

My $0.02.

Art

[Larry Edgerton]

I have Ash ones in my shop that have thousands of feet one each one, and you can't even tell. Split the board with an ax first to get the grain perfect.