Melamine built the flat-pack industry: paper infused with resin, fused to particleboard. At its price, nothing competes. At its limits, everything does.
Surface and substrate
TFL's decor paper can imitate colour and woodgrain convincingly in photos, but the surface is thin and the substrate is usually particleboard, which swells fast if water finds a seam. Lacquered MDF carries a many-times-thicker finish on a denser, machinable core.
Chips are forever
When melamine chips, brown core shows through and the only fix is edge-band tricks or replacement. Lacquer chips reveal primer and are touch-up sprayed to invisible on site.
The right use for each
Cabinet interiors in melamine with lacquered fronts is the classic value-engineered build — clients touch the fronts, not the carcass. We supply exactly that split every week through the trade program.