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The Dangers of OSB
4/1/10 10:25 amThat's "oriented strand board" for those who don't find hanging out at Home Depot fun.
Recently Bill, the elder grey cat, has decided that Beau, the young upstart Siamese, must be disciplined at night, and so about 1:30 or so in the morning Bill will have a go at Beau. We wouldn't know about this, except that Beau, being a True Meezer, unleashes unearthly wails and moans while facing off with Bill. So when I go to bed, I shut my door with Beau and Maggie inside.
This wouldn't be a problem, except Beau Gets Bored, being an active 2 year old Siamese. And being an active 2 yr old Siamese, he's scary smart and acrobatic, so he occupies the time until I turn out the light by racing around the room, seeing if he can balance on the top of my flat screen monitor, running test pages on the printer, trying to turn the door knob to get out, trying to open the closet, standing on the TV and trying to get on top of the picture on the wall, and just generally causing havoc.
So I've decided to build him some cat shelves on the walls, to give him somewhere Tall to get, and to let him literally climb the walls. There will be a few straight runs, some staggered shelves, some angled runs, and a couple of curling spots in the corner over the computer.
Enter the OSB. I was going to get melamine boards to build the shelves and cover them with pieces of cheap carpet. However, upon checking the prices at Home Depot, I discovered that would be too expensive. They had some 3/4 inch OSB on sale, so I got a 4 ft x 8 ft sheet. That gave me 4 10" planks and 1 8" plank.
Now, OSB is made of layers of wood flakes mixed with glue, and laid down in layers. It's very strong because there's no one shear point for it to fail at. It's stronger than comparable plywood or pure wood. The only drawback is, since it's essentially made of splinters, it's really bad about giving you splinters along the sawn edges.
Tuesday we got it sawn into the planks, and I knocked down the cut edges with coarse sandpaper. Then I got two of them painted with a first coat (which will be the underside of the shelves). Yesterday I went out to paint the other 3, and put the second coat on the first two.
I got the first plank set up and ready to paint, and without thinking I brushed the top to get sawdust off. Now, you never do this, because there are vicious splinters on the cut edges of OSB, just waiting to impale your hand. Or your finger. Which is precisely what I did.
I looked at the huge splinter sticking out of my right ring finger and said, "Oh piss." I pulled out what I could see, and then saw that there was still a hard something under the skin. I sighed and headed indoors for minor hand surgery. (Huge splinter was probably about 1/4" wide and about 3 inches long. What wasn't in my finger.)
I settled down on the couch with the reading light on and focused on my finger. Got the surgical implements (nail clipper and tweezers) and started in. I got one clip into the skin when I felt something poke my little finger. I looked and saw a tiny bit of splinter sticking out the other side of my finger. What? Further investigation showed that yes indeedy, this splinter had gone through my finger and out the other side.
Hmm. Being an inveterate Home Surgeon, I grabbed the tiny splinter tip with the tweezers and pulled. Nothing. I pulled harder. Still nothing. My finger was still in trauma shock, so it didn't really hurt. I figured, upon further reflection, that if the entry hole was bigger than the exit hole, said splinter wasn't coming out the exit, and I couldn't see anything to grab in the entry. A Trip To ER was in order.
So we went to the ER, which is almost literally across the street, and after an unusually short wait the ER doc had a look, numbed up the finger, and got the splinter out without having to flay my finger open. I got a tetanus shot just for luck, and that hurt more than the damn splinter did -- felt like someone punched me in the arm, it did. They packed it full of neosporin, then put a gigantic bandage on it. After I got home I took off the bandage, re-applied neosporin, and put a band-aid on it (one of the flexible butterfly shaped ones, they have a long pad on them). Ate 3 Tylenols.
During the night I was up every 5 hours taking a 10/100 hydrocodone, it hurt that bad. Right now I have 3 Tylenol 500 mg on board, and it's not bothering me too much.
The lesson to take away from this is: If there is sawdust on your OSB plank, use a broom or a bench brush to clean it off. Do NOT use your hand.
I will be painting today and Beaubert's cat shelves will no doubt go up this weekend.
Recently Bill, the elder grey cat, has decided that Beau, the young upstart Siamese, must be disciplined at night, and so about 1:30 or so in the morning Bill will have a go at Beau. We wouldn't know about this, except that Beau, being a True Meezer, unleashes unearthly wails and moans while facing off with Bill. So when I go to bed, I shut my door with Beau and Maggie inside.
This wouldn't be a problem, except Beau Gets Bored, being an active 2 year old Siamese. And being an active 2 yr old Siamese, he's scary smart and acrobatic, so he occupies the time until I turn out the light by racing around the room, seeing if he can balance on the top of my flat screen monitor, running test pages on the printer, trying to turn the door knob to get out, trying to open the closet, standing on the TV and trying to get on top of the picture on the wall, and just generally causing havoc.
So I've decided to build him some cat shelves on the walls, to give him somewhere Tall to get, and to let him literally climb the walls. There will be a few straight runs, some staggered shelves, some angled runs, and a couple of curling spots in the corner over the computer.
Enter the OSB. I was going to get melamine boards to build the shelves and cover them with pieces of cheap carpet. However, upon checking the prices at Home Depot, I discovered that would be too expensive. They had some 3/4 inch OSB on sale, so I got a 4 ft x 8 ft sheet. That gave me 4 10" planks and 1 8" plank.
Now, OSB is made of layers of wood flakes mixed with glue, and laid down in layers. It's very strong because there's no one shear point for it to fail at. It's stronger than comparable plywood or pure wood. The only drawback is, since it's essentially made of splinters, it's really bad about giving you splinters along the sawn edges.
Tuesday we got it sawn into the planks, and I knocked down the cut edges with coarse sandpaper. Then I got two of them painted with a first coat (which will be the underside of the shelves). Yesterday I went out to paint the other 3, and put the second coat on the first two.
I got the first plank set up and ready to paint, and without thinking I brushed the top to get sawdust off. Now, you never do this, because there are vicious splinters on the cut edges of OSB, just waiting to impale your hand. Or your finger. Which is precisely what I did.
I looked at the huge splinter sticking out of my right ring finger and said, "Oh piss." I pulled out what I could see, and then saw that there was still a hard something under the skin. I sighed and headed indoors for minor hand surgery. (Huge splinter was probably about 1/4" wide and about 3 inches long. What wasn't in my finger.)
I settled down on the couch with the reading light on and focused on my finger. Got the surgical implements (nail clipper and tweezers) and started in. I got one clip into the skin when I felt something poke my little finger. I looked and saw a tiny bit of splinter sticking out the other side of my finger. What? Further investigation showed that yes indeedy, this splinter had gone through my finger and out the other side.
Hmm. Being an inveterate Home Surgeon, I grabbed the tiny splinter tip with the tweezers and pulled. Nothing. I pulled harder. Still nothing. My finger was still in trauma shock, so it didn't really hurt. I figured, upon further reflection, that if the entry hole was bigger than the exit hole, said splinter wasn't coming out the exit, and I couldn't see anything to grab in the entry. A Trip To ER was in order.
So we went to the ER, which is almost literally across the street, and after an unusually short wait the ER doc had a look, numbed up the finger, and got the splinter out without having to flay my finger open. I got a tetanus shot just for luck, and that hurt more than the damn splinter did -- felt like someone punched me in the arm, it did. They packed it full of neosporin, then put a gigantic bandage on it. After I got home I took off the bandage, re-applied neosporin, and put a band-aid on it (one of the flexible butterfly shaped ones, they have a long pad on them). Ate 3 Tylenols.
During the night I was up every 5 hours taking a 10/100 hydrocodone, it hurt that bad. Right now I have 3 Tylenol 500 mg on board, and it's not bothering me too much.
The lesson to take away from this is: If there is sawdust on your OSB plank, use a broom or a bench brush to clean it off. Do NOT use your hand.
I will be painting today and Beaubert's cat shelves will no doubt go up this weekend.
