MDF, the “New Material”

Clare Hollister

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Chris Franklin MD at Ranheat Engineering Ltd, a leading UK manufacturer of wood combustion equipment, continues his series of articles for Panel and Joinery Production.

This edition he looks at how the wood burning industry has grown and developed over the last 40+ years that he has been in the industry.

“It’s hard to imagine that Medium Density Fibreboard was once considered a “New Material” where would the industry be without MDF?

When MDF first came onto the scene it was considered a new Material and not a lot was known about. Around 1990 a new company, part of the JS Hickman Sawmill group was founded called Fibercill. As the name suggested it was to make windowsills using MDF board shaped and primer painted. 

This proved successful so the range of products was extended to include skirting boards and architraves.

At the time the machining of MDF using profiled cutters was a new concept Fibercill developed the technique of cutting, machining, sanding painting and drying of the product and then packaging.

Ranheat was approached as a specialist manufacturer of wood burning equipment able to produce a system that could burn this new material. Once MDF is machined it produces what we called MDF Flour. This was a very fine dust that nobody wanted to handle or take away.

Fibercill had installed a 300 kW plant installed by another company but they could not get it to work.

Ranheat were tasked with removing the 300 kW plant and installing a 1,000kW plant as production was on the increase and much more dust was being produced than a 300 kW system could cope with.

Ranheat’s system was a complete success and worked extremely well with the MDF Flour.

Shortly after Ranheat were commissioned to install a second 1,000 kW plant alongside the first one as production of MDF products was on the increase.

It wasn’t long before Ranheat were again approached to install an additional boiler this time an extra 2,000 Kw boiler was added.

The growth in demand for MDF products continued and an additional 2,200 kW boiler was added.

Fibrecill now had a total boiler capacity to run at full output of 6.2 MW on 100% MDF Flour.  Most of the heat produced was dissipated to atmosphere.

The installations were fully permitted by the local authority under the then new Environmental Protection Act under guidance note PG1/12.

With current energy prices it would now seem incredible to waste all that heat, but at the time disposal was the main problem, so the heat produced was never utilised.

As with most innovative ideas it was not long before other companies started up machining MDF for use in housebuilding.

Other forms of MDF came along including fire retardant and water retardant.

“Chris recalled getting a phone call from another customer who normally used standard MDF but was given a project that needed fire retardant MDF to be used.”

He called and said “Chris, I’m having one hell of a job burning this fire retardant MDF”

Then silence on the phone,” I think I have just answered my own question”

Ranheat were able to help by adjusting all of the settings on the machine although fire retardant it is not fire proof so can be burned. That customer never took on another job using FR MDF.

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