Posted by Matt on February 13, 2002 at 19:46:17:
In Reply to: Screwing into MDF on the edge posted by Jonathan the Red on February 13, 2002 at 17:53:57:
Jonathon, I will warn you, it would be risky in 3/4" MDF let alone into 1/2", will this piece ever have to be removed? I assume it will be, if not the problem is simple use some shallow screws (basically for looks and aligniment)that only go into the MDF about 1/4" and glue and clamp the pieces in place, try and use a good glue like a polurethane glue (brand name Excel, Gorilla and Titebond Polyurethane), the edge of MDF tends to soak up wood glue alot, but the urethane will expand (it foams like squirt foam) and swell into the edge, it will be stronger than you will ever need that way, this all is true if you DON'T want to ever disassemble it.
If your going to ever dissassemble it, there is some ways out, first off it would probably split even with predrilling to the screws shank diameter, also don't use a tapered wood screw, something like a coarse thread sheetrocks your best bet, and put it in by hand. If your still set on using your screws you have, you could do a old trick, in the edge of the mdf pre drill to locate where the screws are going to go, pull your control panel apart and drill it out with a 1/4 drill bit, now you have a big 'ol hole where the screw should go right?? Well the next step is cut off a piece of 1/4" diameter dowell and glue it into the hole, so now the screw will be going into wood instead of MDF, predrill again, like I mentioned to the screws shank diamter and screw in by hand, don't get to crazy with your joystick grip, but just snug it down and make sure the hole through the lexan and the control panel is big enough the screws threads go on through it as well, you should be fine. If its a big diameter screw you might go to a 5/16" hole and dowell.
One thing to remember when working with MDF, its basically layers of paper, 10 years ago when it was new, we paid around 6o bucks per sheet for it, it was only made in Chile, no US manufacture could figure out the manufacturing process, its brand name was Tru-Pan. Then about 3 years after that a Canadian manufacture (Ranger) figured it out, the price fell in half and its available under several manufactures now, Enough of the boring history of MDF. But just as you would expect screwing into the edge of a bunch of paper layers isn't going to be to good! If you have any questions let me know, as there are other pieces of hardware like cross dowells and KD (knock Down)fittings that could be used, but thats the cheapest and easiest fix, and enables you to use you existing hardware too, that I can think of off hand, best of Luck Matt
: The screws don't need to be particularly sturdy. They're just intended to hold the panel in place and they don't need to bear any load. Can anyone advise (especially Matt and/or Randy) about just how risky it'll be to drive those screws in? And if I choose to go for it, what's the best (and safest) way to predrill to minimize the risk?
: Thanks in advance.