Guys,
Gluing strip flooring on the stairs, I have a landing roughly 3 1/2 by 6 feet half way up the stair case with roughly 3/4 OSB, only problem, the OSB is just plain nasty, must of been at the bottom of the stack sitting in some georgia red clay, no way the glue is going to stick to this, can I just put a layer of luan over the osb, and then glue the wood to the luan? Other than be just nasty, the OSB seems fine, no swelling anywhere. as far as I can tell.

I mention luan becuase its thin and will not change the height of the stairs to much, and I can screw the crap out of it to the osb.

Thanks for your help.
Dan

You could. Or sand the OSB clean.

Thanks Gary, I would prefer the luan, sanding is just going to kick up a lot dust, already spent a week using a swifter on the wall's after sanding off all the paint over spary on the stair treads, which were also covered in clay.

Most staircases I have seen the plywood on the landings doesnt go to far (if at all) under the upper stairs. Maybe you could remove the OSB, and put down a new piece of plywood? Usually the peice is held down by 12 screws and minimal glue.

Is nailing the flooring down not an option? Just curious as to why youre glueing to a landing.

I personally wouldnt use luan, id use a 3/8ths cdx, the extra 1/8th inch should be a simple obsticle to overcome

I just measured the steps, and seems the step up to the landing is about 1/8-3/16 shorter than the other steps, and the step up from the landing is about 1/8-3/16 to higher so, yeah, I could get away with 3/8, But what about a nice hardwood plywood, like a birch, around 1/4 or an inch? If not I'll go with 3/8's cdx.

Guess I figured that I'd just glue the landing since I was glueing everything else, and since i'm using strip flooring, the grove starts from the stair nose, seems kind a like a pain to change direction with a spline, so I could staple the tonuge.

Thanks again.

Id just go with the cdx, glue and screw/staple it down, the 18th/1/16th/3/3625ths difference you wont even notice. then glue your flooring on top of it

Sold, 3/8 plywood thanks for your help.