MDF vs Particle Board

[smokediver576]

Well.... I went and had some 4x8 sheets of MDF cut down thinking I'd use them on my Pro8 system to make vacuum forming molds.  Man, I learned about 1" into the cut that this baby powder dust cloud was not going to work running in my CNC machine shop.  So, the only way I can router the MDF is rolling the unit outside.  I'm looking at getting a Rockler tool 2 hp dust collector to attach to the dust boot I bought with the system but even then I think it's going to still "leak" out.

So.... my next thought was, maybe particle board is less "dusty"....

Anyone with feedback on if particle board is less dusty?

You can see some of the plastics machining we've been doing with Axson DP-1051 Die Planks - Instagram: followusatcoolcncstuff

Later,
Awall

[wolfenstien]

Particle board is less dusty for sure. The pieces are much larger. For forms it is ok but still not ideal. I like to use baltic birch ply for all of my jigs, fixtures and forms. While it is a bit more expensive, it is very stable and is easy to work with. If you plan on keeping them around for multiple uses I would suggest going that route.

[Deleted]

Something to consider in place of MDF, yes it's a mess, would be high density urethane foam. It cuts great, fast and comes in different densities for various purposes. One source is:

precisionboard.com/

[Coastal Enterprises]

Thanks for the link to our HDU! We have found that by adjusting your speeds and feeds settings when machining Precision Board, you can create more chips and less dust. Blog post here with more details, including a helpful chip load formula from LMT Onsrud: precisionboard.com/news/updated-speeds-and-feeds-for-precision-board-hdu/.