Has anybody ever found Melamine panels with veneer core rather than sawdust core body? Although I (and my customers) like the Melamine surface, I really don’t like working with mdf – it’s dusty when cutting, heavy, has little strength compared to plywood and little screw-holding power (unless using special and expensive screws). After having just built a cabinet box using what used to be called “signboard”, I started wondering why a similar product isn’t made using the Melamine surface.
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Harbor Sales has a product called "Ready Edge" that sounds like what you're after.
http://www.harborsales.net/lookups.cfm?categoryID=7&subcategoryID=11&cat=plywood%20%2D%2D%20composites
I don't think anyone laminates melamine directly to plywood; the grain would telegraph through too easily.
Somewhere (unfortunately, I can't remember where), I saw a photo of a hybrid plywood panel. The inner plies were normal plywood core veneers, then there were two thin MDF layers, one on each side, directly below the face veneers. The idea was to combine the strength and other good properties of plywood with the surface smoothness of MDF. My guess is that someone probably makes melamine-faced panels of this sort.
-Steve
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