WOOD RESEARCH, vol.56, no.4, pp.601-612, 2011 (SCI-Expanded)
Composite materials and wooden dowels are being used increasingly in the construction of furniture frames and inner decoration. Yet there is little information available concerning the withdrawal strength of various fasteners, and, in particular, dowels in composite materials edged solid wood edge bandings. The aim of this study was to determine the withdrawal strengths of 6, 8, 10 mm diameter dowels produced from beech with respect to edge of a medium-density fiberboard (MDF) or particleboard (PB) edged with 5, 10 and 15 mm thickness of solid wood edge banding of scotch pine, oriental beech and lime tree, bonded with hot-melt, poly (vinyl acetate) (PVAc) and Desmodur-VTKA (D-VTKA), a polyurethane based one-component adhesive. The effects of edge banding thickness, dimension of dowels, type of composite materials and type of adhesives used for edge banding on the withdrawal strength were determined. The highest (6.68 N.mm(-2)) withdrawal strength was obtained in beech dowels with 8 mm diameter for MDF with 5 mm thickness of solid wood edge banding of bonded beech with D-VTKA adhesive.