What is OSB and how is it made? - Did You Know? @YourNewHouse

Uploaded July 2024 | Updated September 2026, 11 minutes ago

OSB stands for oriented strand board, an engineered wood product made from small wafers of wood and tightly bound together to for a large, flat, strong board. Although it is sometimes mistakenly called plywood, OSB is a completely different product from tradition plywood.

The fabrication process allows manufacturers to use smaller, faster growing trees to make large boards vs plywood. Southern Yellow Pine is a popular tree for making OSB. A machine called a waferizer is used to shave thin strands of wood from logs that, on average, are six inches in diameter. There wafers will measure 1/20 thousandth of an inch thick and approximately four inches by two inches. After sufficient drying, the wafers are placed in a large tumbler that resembles a clothes dryer. While being tumbled atomized particles of polyurethane resin are uniformly deposited on the wafers. This is the glue that will bond the wafers together when forming a board. The wafers are formed into a square or rectangular matte, about four inches thick. The matte is placed into a press that exerts 450 psi of pressure and heat up to 420 degrees Fahrenheit for two minutes.

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