Polyurethane looks blotchy

Q: My third coat of polyurethane on my hardwood floors came out blotchy, high sheen to low sheen. How do we fix this?

A: There are numerous elements that can all affect how a coat dries and how it looks after.

The only thing I can suggest is to lightly buff or abrade the last coat and clean up thoroughly. Before applying the next, make sure the finish is stirred very well. It is OK to have some windows open to vent the rooms, but you don’t want a lot of air movement in the rooms until the finish has had a chance to flow to level and set up. Apply thin coats.

Similar Q: We just redid our wood floors. After sanding and staining we applied gloss poly then sanded/buffed.. applied 2nd coat of gloss ploy, then lightly sanded. Then we applied the final coal in semi gloss poly. 24 Hrs later the room is splotchy, gloss and dull… the whole dining room still looks shiny. The polyurethane looks blotchy. Do I re-apply a 4th coat again in semi gloss?

A: It sounds like you didn’t stir the semi gloss adequately. The hands down best, most reliable floor finish I have ever used in Poloplaz Primero. As there lead sales manager said: ‘We spent a little extra in research to find a way to help keep the flattening paste suspended in the finish.” I think I would give the 3 coats at least 2 weeks to harden with good ventilation before attempting another coat.

3 thoughts on “Polyurethane looks blotchy”

  1. These spots were our thresholds, which we are sianntig thin pieces of wood and putting over these doorways. Our carpet tack spots we covered with concrete repair mix, but there is a process with repairing these spots. I’d suggest purchasing a couple different concrete repair/mixes and doing test spots. Follow instructions, you may have to sand it flat with the floor. You want to make sure it feels like the concrete around it as well as a close enough color.If your cracks are shallow or simply not very big they may not show up. It’s entirely up to you to leave the spots and cracks but we chose to fill our carpet tack holes. We have maybe 2 very thin cracks we left which aren’t even noticeable.As for our actual tack holes, they turned out okay it’s all about matching the concrete that is already there. Which is not an easy as it should be, haha!

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