Hinged panel for furniture

The present invention relates to panels for ready-to-assemble furniture, and more particularly relates to a foldable fibreboard or hardboard panel having knock-out areas that extend over a hinge line and to a method for manufacturing such a panel. A hinged panel which is used as the back-panel of ready-to-assemble furniture. A strip of tape is adhered to one side of a piece of hardboard or similar board of material such as medium density fiberboard or high density fiberboard. The hardboard is die cut along a taped hinge line while the tape is present and remains uncut. Further, one or more knock-out areas are die cut through the entire thickness of the hinged hardboard panel at desired locations on the hinged hardboard panel to allow passage of power cords or other wires or cables, or to allow extension of objects. The hinged panel can be folded at the hinge line and put into a small container with other parts of ready-to-assemble furniture for shipment. Since the hinged panel was originally one piece of board, the unfolded hinge line is almost invisible and each half of the knock-out area that straddles the hinge line matches without the need of aligning.