Before industrialization, wood was the primary source of raw material for making furniture. As people’s requirements grew, demand for furniture also started growing. For this, there is just that many trees that can be cut. Then came the time when some varieties of trees started being cultivated just for their wood. Trees like pine, maple etc are fast growing which makes them great for mass production. The only issue is the strength of the wood. For that reason, methods were needed to figure out how to use these woods to make cheap and affordable raw material for use.

That is when commercial treatment of wood became a practice. In the beginning, fast growing varieties of trees as well as the wasted bark of other trees was sent through a laminator and made into thin sheets of wood which were then stuck together to make plywood.

This process was slowly improved upon by adding different types of wood, making the grains of alternate layers parallel to each other, improving the quality of adhesives etc.

Then came particle boards which used the wastage from all other sources to make flat boards. These ultra thin boards made mass manufacturing a true reality. MDF and then HDF improved upon many aspects of particle board by improving the quality as well as machine-ability of the material.

All these materials which were processed and manufactured in factory are called Engineered Wood.

Engineered wood differs from natural wood in the fact that it has gone some sort of treatment in a factory before it became available for use as raw material.

As discussed, different types of engineered wood are available among which the most well known are:

1. Particle board or commercial board
2. MDF or Medium Density Fiber board
3. HDF or High Density Fiber board
4. Plywood
5. Block board

Many well known and not so well known brands simply mentioned material used as “engineered wood”. This is usually used to denote particle board as they do not want to clearly mention which type of engineered wood is being used.