Finishing OSB

[Prashun Patel]

I've finished paneling my walls with OSB. I'm going to prime and paint it. How did you guys (who use OSB on your shop walls) deal with the seams?

Butt joints showing?

Some kind of molding (1x2's?) covering...

I think it's cleaner to cover the seams, but functionally, they'll get int he way when I try to run long shelving...

Pix appreciated.

[Mike Wilkins]

One day I will get this pic posting thing figured out. I have 1/4" OSB on my shop walls, primed and painted. The paint covers the screws and seams pretty well; seams almost disappear when butted closely together. So I did not add anything to cover the seams. After all; it is a shop, not a museum.

[John Baranowski]

No covers for my seams. I wanted to know where the studs are in case I had something really heavy to hang that OSB won't hold.

[Jim O'Dell]

May be a little bit late now;), but I used some caulk at the seams when I put them together. Scraped the squeeze out with a putty knife, and all is ready to paint when dry. Yeah, you can still see the seams, but in a shop, I don't think that's the end of the world. It's all going to get covered up anyway, right?:D
If the seams are tight, paint it. If you have some gaps, caulk first. If they really bug you later, add some molding after you get you cabinets up on the wall. Jim.

[David Christopher]

Shwwn, I had a couple of joints that didnt fit close and I used latex caulk then white paint

[Prashun Patel]

Thanks guys. I'll probably do the same.

After reading all the posts so far, I'm gonna caulk and paint.

[RickT Harding]

I used the T&G version of the osb on my walls and filled gaps with woodfiller. Then just a few coats of killz for finish.

[Chris Padilla]

One "finishes" OSB by putting sheetrock over it! LOL.... :D :D

[Scott Loven]

To anyone, did the OSB lift at all from the paint? Did you need two coats to make it look good?

Scott

[RickT Harding]

To anyone, did the OSB lift at all from the paint? Did you need two coats to make it look good?

Scott

I never hit it with paint, just white primer. It took a couple of coats. It really soaks into some of the parts. After that it was white enough for my needs and touch up as I mess it up is so easy so never went any further with it.

[Bill Houghton]

Even painted, OSB's not the most attractive surface texture; I'm not sure a lot of effort on addressing the seams is worth it.

[Matt Hankins]

OK, I'll be the dummy who admits to this. I too used OSB in my shop and painted it white. Thing is the red and blue lines bled through. Even with two coats of Zinsser High Hide. So now my shop is appropriate for any baby shower! Oh well, the saw dust will cover it soon. But you won't catch me posting any pics!!:o

Matt

[Prashun Patel]

I was tempted to tack it Line-side-out because those reference lines are actually quite useful when mounting shelves and remembering where yr electrical runs. But I went smooth-out in the end.

Bill, I hear ya! It's just a shop. That's why I went with OSB. Unfortunately, I'm forever trying to make silk purses out of sow's ears - even though I'm probably the ONLY person who'll ever see the inside of my MANCAVE!

[glenn bradley]

I ran paintable caulk down the seam flush with the surface to allow my cleat system to mount easily. Primed with Zinsser BIN after a bad experience with water based primer on OSB (you can re glue the pieces that delaminate, DAMHIKT).

This is primed before I put on the semi-gloss. There's a seam near each of the outlet boxes. The obvious seam at the right hand edge is where the OSB switched to drywall at the electrical panel. Another DAMHIKT; plumb your wall before you put up your wallboard. The framing in my garage was so poor that I had to pull down the wall board and shim everything out to get the cleat system to work well. I wanted to be able to move any fixture any where and the wall irregularities were a bit much for that.

Oh yeah, and I marked the stud locations on the floor and the upper soffit with small unobtrusive marks as the builder was unfamiliar with what 16" on center meant.

[Chris Padilla]

...as the builder was unfamiliar with what 16" on center meant.

LOL! I had a lot of that in my garage as well....

[Dave Wagner]

I just painted my osb in the garage with 2 coats of standard semi-gloss white (cheap commercial white). Good enough for the garage. it's not close to perfect.

OSB was cheaper than drywall at the time and if I want to hang something, I can just screw it anywhere on the walls.

[Mike Hutchison]

Recently M.O.L. finished putting 1 1/2 - 2 coats of PVA Primer (Glidden) on my shop walls. 7/16" OSB. The PVA Primer was recommended by David Baker and a couple others in some earlier posts on this general topic. Still burning up last bit of a can going back over mill marks and shiny side/s of large chunks.
Looks very decent. I'm not sure if I intend to go back over it with paint or not. In the process of getting ready to paint the window casings on one end wall, started messing around skim coating the voids in the web of the OSB with caulk. There are some spots in that material that are hard to get to with brush or roller. Anyhow, the caulk made it white and I figure had to seal OSB with respect to offgassing at least as well as the primer. Not going to worry about seams until I get the last couple pieces of OSB up over back door. May post pic at that point.

[Jim Kountz]

One "finishes" OSB by putting sheetrock over it! LOL.... :D :D

Too funny!! I did a garage for a guy last year who used OSB for the walls, we covered the joints with lathe strips then painted. Worked out fine.

[Prashun Patel]

I primed my walls last nite with Kilz. OSB is some ugly stuff. I had half a mind to skim the walls with some joint compound, until LOML walked into the basement and piledrived me back to sanity.

[Steve Canada]

OSB + Kilz (2 coats) + 1 coat latex.

After all said and done, you hardly notice the seams, and the texture is barely noticeable unless up close.

pics here:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=890988#post890988

[Prashun Patel]

Beware the Kilz! That stuff stinks for weeks.

[glenn bradley]

Hind sight is always best. Zinsser BIN airs out in a couple hours.

[James Ensley]

I also used OSB on my walls, (and ceiling). I wrestled with idea of painting for a couple of weeks. I could not convince myself that it would look better, so in the end I left it unfininshed. So far I love it! Sure, OSB is some ugly stuff, but it looks wood shoppy to me.:D

[Dan West02]

OK, I'll be the dummy who admits to this. I too used OSB in my shop and painted it white. Thing is the red and blue lines bled through. Even with two coats of Zinsser High Hide. So now my shop is appropriate for any baby shower! Oh well, the saw dust will cover it soon. But you won't catch me posting any pics!!:o

Matt

I used just one coat of a Sherwin Williams primer - Problock HS Intrior Alktd, #6012-26293 or it has B49W820 on the can. The HS stands for high solids and does a great job of covering anything from bleeding through and it also smooths out the rough texture of the OSB to a good extent.

I then followed up with an interior laytex from Ace Hardware. Turned out great. In the rare cases of a small gap at the seams (hey, nobody is perfect) I did use a white acrylic caulk before the primer.

[Jack Mincey]

I took a router and beveled the edges where the OSB meet in my shop and it looks good to me. I thought it better to dress up the seams, because it would be hard to hide them. I would thinks that filling the seams would leave cracks over time.
Jack

[Prashun Patel]

I took a router and beveled the edges where the OSB meet in my shop and it looks good to me. I thought it better to dress up the seams, because it would be hard to hide them. I would thinks that filling the seams would leave cracks over time.
Jack

I also toyed with the idea of treating the seams. But once painted, and especially once stuff's up on the walls, I don't notice the seams at all.

[Greg Pierce]

I have an office in my commercial shop building that I took over, it had osb in it already. Take a bucket of drywall mud, dump 2/3 out into another bucket, add 1/3 kilz or your choice primer and 1/3 water, mix to get the mud thinned and paint a couple coats on it. The mud helps fill in all the voids. Enough coats will make it smooth as drywall.

My uncle in the drywall biz put me onto this. Worked well.

Good luck with it.

[George Bregar]

I have an office in my commercial shop building that I took over, it had osb in it already. Take a bucket of drywall mud, dump 2/3 out into another bucket, add 1/3 kilz or your choice primer and 1/3 water, mix to get the mud thinned and paint a couple coats on it. The mud helps fill in all the voids. Enough coats will make it smooth as drywall.

My uncle in the drywall biz put me onto this. Worked well.

Good luck with it. Interesting.