Planing MDF?

i haven’t tried it either but i think if you slow the feed rate way down and take baby bites it would work

-- Ron, Missouri

I don’t work with it much myself, but I hear that it is really tough on saw blades, so I would think it would be hard on planer blades as well.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Say goodbye to your sharp blades if you do it.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I have done it twice now, I had to reduce the thickness of a couple of door panels by about 1/16”. I have a Delta 13” planer and set it for 1/32” cuts at the slower feed rate. Worked fine. I did put in a set of used knives as I thinking it would dull my new knives. The panels came out nice and smooth, but not as smooth as the original surface. And it will suck up the paint also since you are opening up the “grain” of the wood. It didn’t seem to hurt the knives too much, but I would suggest using older knives if you have them.

Hope this helps.

-- Accept Nothing, Challenge Everything

The adhesive will dull any HSS steel blades quickly. Plus some MDF is not consistent in density surface vs core, so if you’re not laying up the veneer/plam shortly after and it’s not balanced and MC changes it might not be flat anymore.

-- Ed

I’ve done it and it works fine, I get so little shop time that blade dulling isn’t much of a problem :)

-- I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

mdf is an extruded product and as such can have any-thing in it. i work at Marc Adams School of woodworking, and a student brought in a sheet of OSB ( ie wafer board) with a wire bristle brush (1/2 sanded away) embedded in it. from the other side it looked perfectly normal. other instructors have found stones or BOLTS in their MDF. I would run it through a drum sander before planing it, personally.

nope…not in my book

-- /\/\/\ BarryW /\/\/\ Stay so busy you don't have time to die.

I plane it all the time -

I’ll tell you this, MDF is extreemly hard on the carbide on saw blades….. so…. to extrapolate that to the blades on a thickness which are made of HSS and have at least 96 times more cutting surface…....

i’ve planed this stuff befor the only thing i would say is add an inch all the way around each peice your sending thru the planer ive found i get some chip out on the edges.

-- I buy tools so i can make more money,so ican buy more tools so I can work more, to make more money, so I can buy more tool, so I can work more