mdf doors???????

[bruce buren]

Has anyone ever built 5 piece cabinet doors solely out of mdf??? Mdf rails and stiles and mdf raised panels. Would they hold up???

[Jim Bowers]

MDF Doors is what is used in Commercial Cabinets. If I was going to make doors out of MDF I would use the lightweight product. In the commercial side instead of screws to hold hinges they uses plastic dowels. Have fun. I am sure there will be many here who have success as well as those who have had failures. Learn by doing

[Ben Franz]

I've done several sets of paint grade doors using poplar or maple for the frame and MDF (or HDF) for the raised panels - pretty standard method. I wouldn't trust MDF to hold up over the long run to the wear and tear a typical cabinet door frame takes. The cost difference is peanuts compared to the risk of premature failure IMO.

[Frank Drew]

I agree with Ben; in frame and panel doors I'd only use sheet goods for the panel, not the frame. And I haven't been impressed with the durability of a lot of those MDO and whatever Euro-hinge flush doors.

[frank shic]

yes, i've built over 4 dozen raised panel doors and drawer fronts COMPLETELY out of mdf (rails and stiles included). it'll work but make sure you've got excellent dust collection or the dust will get everywhere and stick to everything. i used the inserta blum hinges and they've been holding up fine since i built them over 2 years ago. in the future, i'll just reserve the mdf for the center panel since it's such a pain to glue them up on paint grade doors.

[Paul Atkins]

Why would you?

[Simon Dupay]

Usually, the door is routed out of a single piece of mdf (both the raised & stick profile) on a CNC machine so the door is one piece.

[glenn bradley]

I have the doors Simon describes in areas of my house that haven't been upgraded yet (bathroom undersink). They are painted and the house is 25 years old. I bought from a family with kids that bought from a family with kids. Doors still work . . . they're ugly painted doors but they still work.

[Randal Stevenson]

yes, i've built over 4 dozen raised panel doors and drawer fronts COMPLETELY out of mdf (rails and stiles included). it'll work but make sure you've got excellent dust collection or the dust will get everywhere and stick to everything. i used the inserta blum hinges and they've been holding up fine since i built them over 2 years ago. in the future, i'll just reserve the mdf for the center panel since it's such a pain to glue them up on paint grade doors.


Did you have issues with screwing the hinges to them as described above? Any pictures?

I think I would prefer the popular rails/stiles but for a project that may not stick around, this sounds like a good possibility.

[J.R. Rutter]

Why would you?

I've had contractors ask me about doing 5-pc MDF doors to avoid the paint cracking that can happen at the rail/stile joint due to expansion/contraction difference in end/edge grain.

[Bryan Cowing]

my only mdf project was a Quebec bonnet cupboard. The door was a double raised panel. I made the raised panel fit snug and glued panel and stiles and rails all together. 10 years now and it's holding up well at my daughters house, but It has had a color change, she painted it black. It was cheap to make out of mdf, about a $100 but you need a cart to move it!:eek:

[Brian Penning]

When you're referring to the centre panels made out of MDF -is this panel only 1/4" OR is it made of thicker material and rabbeted?
TIA

[Ben Franz]

Either way - 1/4" MDF if you want a flat panel door or 3/4" (5/8" possibly) that has been shaped as a raised panel. One point is that MDF cut with a router or shaper to make a raised panel requires a fair amount of filling and sanding to get a smooth surface on the shaped edges when painted. HDF is a lot less work and is used by many commercial cabinet door shops.

[J.R. Rutter]

When you're referring to the centre panels made out of MDF -is this panel only 1/4" OR is it made of thicker material and rabbeted?
TIA

I prefer just 1/4" flat panels because exposed edges on MDF tend to swell slightly and/or fuzz up when finished. But you can do rabbeted flat panels for solid feel, or raised panels in MDF for paint. If shaped/exposed, I seal with shellac and sand with fine grit to better match the smooth faces.

[Chip Lindley]

Has anyone ever built 5 piece cabinet doors solely out of mdf??? Mdf rails and stiles and mdf raised panels. Would they hold up???

I can use beautiful solid WOOD, instead of wood BY-products for raised panel doors! IMO, all the craze of painted and faux-wood cabinets was contrived because of MDF which can be turned into cheaply produced (not necessisarily cheap-to-buy) consumer products on cookie-cutter CNC machines. Reminds me of the fable about The Emperor's Clothes...

We are better than that! We are WOODworkers, afterall!