• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.64-71
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• 1999

This study was conducted to manufacture MDF panels bonded with PF resins which provide excellent durability and dimensional stability with panels, and to identify benefits and weaknesses of using PF resins for MDF panels that have been manufactured with urea-formaldehyde (UF) resins for interior applications due to its low dimensional stability under moisture conditions. The results showed that the performance of PF-bonded MDF panels satisfied the performance requirement. A six-cycle aging test also revealed that PF-bonded MDF panels had high durability. Thickness swelling after 24 hours submersion in cold water was less than 2 percent, showing good dimentioanl stability. The identified weaknesses of using PF resins were relatively high resin content and long hot-pressing time. An acceptable resin content appeared to be 8 percent which can increase the production cost of PF-bonded MDF panels. The hot-pressing time (7 minutes) used in this study is relatively long compared to that of UF-bonded MDF panels. This result also indicates that hot-pressing process has to be optimized to control various pressing variables.