Hardboard?

[ljn]

I am refurbishing a 1760s town house.

In the entrance and stairway to the first 3 floors are lined with wood panelling about 80 cm high.
In the ground floor and first floor rooms, behind the wood-chip wallpaper there are 18 mm thick panels of a very light material with a consistency somewhere between hardboard and felt. The colour is brown, like hardboard It is very soft.It is fixed with nails similar to those used for felt roofing to a frame of old batons that in the lower portion also support the skirting boards.

Any idea what this "softboard" could be?

 

[chuckey]

I know it as fibre board, I would think it was nailed up to substitute for a missing plaster thickness.
Frank

 

[DaveBrigg]

Sounds like that mdf that Handy Andy of Changing Rooms was so fond of. I've not heard of it being nailed to walls before, but we had similar sized and positioned pieces of plywood in our house, which did a fairly poor job of hiding the damp and crumbling plaster behind.

 

[MdB]

It sounds to me like old fibre board which is a poor relation to modern MDF. The stuff I remember always had edges that where falling to pieces.

 

[Nemesis]

Easy to tell - if it's soft enough to dent with a fingernail, it's fibreboard.

 

[ljn]

Thanks.
This stuff I've found must me the low density fiberboard.
I'll add it to the "remove to skip" list.

 

[Penners]

fiberboard.
I'll add it to the "remove to skip" list.

Yes, as others have said, it's fibreboard.

However, before you chuck it all out, do you need a nice "reminder notes" pinboard? If so, it's the perfect stuff. Cover a piece with fabric, and Bob's yer uncle.