Can this make, say, planks out of sawdust?
The sawdust planks wouldn't have the properties of the long-grain wood fiber planks though. The fibers that make up natural wood are what makes the wood tough.
Plywood can be nice. It doesn't expand with temperature changes like planks and doesn't have a grain direction that it can split along.
The others, I hate. Any small amount of moisture and they delaminate. OSB is so ugly and rough that you need to hide it because you'll never be able to apply enough primer to cover the chip pattern. I'd rather just use regular plywood at that point. Particle board is the same, but I'm okay with the kind coated on both sides with melamine. It's pretty hard to get a much flatter surface than melamine particle board without spending ridiculously more on granite.
But MDF is the worst. A lot of people like MDF because it's easy to work and can be fairly structural, if you use it right. But it's very, very easy to damage, has absolutely zero edge strength, and it makes a super-fine, extremely carcinogenic sawdust that is extremely difficult to clean up completely. Yes, all sawdust is carcinogenic, always wear a mask in the wood shop, but MDF sawdust never goes away.
Frankly, it's just easier to get a bunch of sheets of birch plywood and southern pine dimensional lumber shipped direct to my house and not worry about it.
You are evidently thinking of chipboard, not plywood.
Chipboard (also known as Particle Board), is a wood composite material of wood chips and sawdust, compacted and bound together with adhesives.
Plywood is made of multiple cross-layered wood veneers, pressed with adhesives.
A bit more detail at [0].
Thank you - yes, I mixed them up in my head!