Particleboard

Particle board

Particleboard, sometimes called chipboard (Flakeboard® is the company name of an early maker of particleboard) is a panel made of waste wood that has been chipped into small splinter-sized bits, and then glued back together using synthetic resin polymers. It is inexpensive, and resists warping. It is commonly used to make low priced furniture, cabinets, and shelving. It fractures and crumbles easily. Its delicacy in that regard makes it largely unsuitable for use in artist panels. It should not be confused with the much higher quality fiberboard.

Fiberboards

Fiber Boards

Any of several types of engineered wood panels made from sawdust. The sawdust, with or without the addition of polymer resins, are formed into boards using heat and pressure. There are three categories of fiberboards; the difference is their density:
*Hardboard
*HDF
*MDF
But fiberboard manufacturers often blur, stretch, or interchange these terms. A useful distinction can be made between "wet-process" boards (most Hardboard) and "dry-process" boards (HDF and MDF). The fibers in wet-process boards are "glued" back together using the relatively unstable lignin resins found in the wood; dry-process boards substitute stable synthetic resins to bond the fibers together. The fibers in wet-process boards are interlocked in two dimensions, at best. These boards tend to separate in layers, distort when the fibers expand, and have very porous edges. Dry-process boards are made with fibers interlocked in three dimensions. This makes for a more cohesive board which minimizes de-lamination and edge porosity, and increases dimensional stability.

Dry-process fiberboards are very stable and make excellent art panels; choose them over wet-process boards for this purpose. MDF and HDF are very similar panels and share most of the same qualities; they tend to differ only by a small amount in density. The manufacturing process of these products usually results in the thinner panels having slightly higher densities. Panels of a half inch or more are generally MDF; panels of a quarter inch or less usually fall into the category of HDF, though these are generally called "thin MDF" (TMDF) since the public is more familiar with the term "MDF' than "HDF'. Fiberboard should not be confused with cheaper particleboard.
Masonite® is a registered trademark of the Masonite Corporation. The term is often and incorrectly used to refer to any brand of hardboard, which was invented by William H. Mason in 1924. The Masonite Company, which he founded, uses the name Duron® to refer to its current hardboard products (which are "wet-process" boards).
One of the problems that are common to fiberboards is their tendency to curve and bend by their own weight if left standing on edge. Another problem is: if the painting is dropped, there is a big chance that its edges will crumble especially the corners. These can be prevented by reinforcement and framing. Fiberboard is prone to warping, particularly in humid climates, but this risk is reduced by priming the front, back and edges of the board. You can seal just the back and the ages of the prepared board with couple of coats of house paint, or polyurethane varnish, or shellac, or shellac and an oil urethane finish.

The panels are available in two forms: tempered and untempered. Both untempered (or standard) and tempered panels can be used by the artist. They are made by the same process, the only different is the final step of the tempered, in witch a small amount of oil (usually linseed)is applied on the panel surface and then baked. Most of this oil is flashed off when the boards are baked at temperatures about 400 degrees F. This "tempering" oil is invisible and does not leave an oil residue on the panel that can cause adhesion problems, as did the outdated hardboard. The purpose of this process is to make the board stronger and less prone to warping. Unfortunately, artists and conservators have incorrectly been led to believe that even today's tempered hardboard is impregnated with a lot of harmful oil.

Plywood (胶合板）

Plywood is made by gluing several layers of wood together. The center of the ply boards, the "core", is made of thicker piece of soft wood to witch have been glued on both sides thinner sheets of harder wood, the so-called veneer. There is a five-ply board used for doors and furniture witch is highly regarded. The veneer must be glued with "alternating grain direction", it makes the plywood stronger.

There are two kinds of veneers: sawn and peeled.
The peeled veneers are the most used ones; they are made by soaking and steaming the logs and then putting them through a machine that peels the thin veneer from them with a knife blade in a rotary manner.
The sawn ones are less used, the disadvantage is that sawing will waste too much wood; more sawdust than veneer is produced, but they are better than peeled veneers. Peeled veneers usually curl up in trying to return to their original spiral position in relation to the core of the tree.
It is not recommended that any of this material be cut with a handsaw, as the outer plies are liable to be loosened and broken away at the edges, a circular saw or band-saw is better, because the teeth go in one direction only. But the better option is to go to carpenter; you'll get a board with straight edges and wanted size. If the size of the desired board is big (45cm and more), it is better to reinforce it.

 
Plywood panel