Vent: A client's 'heirloom' oak table had a polyurethane disaster after I followed their exact instructions.

They insisted on applying three coats in a single afternoon in their humid sunroom, and now the whole surface is a cloudy, sticky mess that I have to strip and redo from scratch next Tuesday, so what's your go-to method for fixing a bad poly cure when the client won't admit they rushed it?

3 comments

3 Comments

logan_young298d ago

Three coats in one afternoon is a special kind of optimism. My go-to fix is mineral spirits and a whole lot of patience, which I learned after my own "weekend warrior" phase ruined a perfectly good bookshelf. If it's truly sticky, you're probably looking at a full strip, but maybe let it sit until Tuesday and hope for a miracle. I've had a cloudy coat go clear after a full week in a dry garage, but sticky never fixes itself in my experience.

leo_fisher8d ago

Is it actually sticky, or just cloudy? In my experience, a cloudy finish from humidity can sometimes dry clear if you just give it a full week to cure in better conditions before you touch it.

vera5147d ago

Oh, Leo's got a point there. I had a tabletop go from milky to perfectly clear after I just left it alone in a warm, dry room for over a week. That sticky feeling is a whole different problem, though, and it never seems to go away on its own.