Polyurethane Issue w/ hardwood floors

Greetings! First thank you for the taking the time to check out this post.

Here's my issue: My father-in-law decided that he wanted to paint our hardfloors with a high gloss, high build polyurethane coating (I believe the product used was minwax). After completing the job, the polyurethane coating developed what can best be described as a shattered-glass look, or almost like a spider-web effect. It appears that the polyurethane is cracked.

Has anyone here ever heard of this and if so, thoughts on how it might be able to be fixed? Any help would be immensely appreciated! Thanks again for your time!

Welcome to the forum.

I started a thread about a week ago on just this topic. It was called I should have asked.
http://www.houserepairtalk.com/f107/i-should-have-asked-16565/

I think you got some over ambitious help similar to what I had and a similar result.

Please read the thread above as I went into much more detail than I will here, but in a nutshell these water based poly’s have to be applied in very thin coats and without introducing air into the product. They dry so fast that they skin over in just a few minutes and then as the rest of the material dries its trapped inside and gasses can’t escape or as the material shrinks it can do something similar to what yours did. There are products I saw that are called high build that I haven’t used. Please post the exact information on what you used and what it says on the directions. I got a lot of useful information also from a phone call with the factory rep. it was a little too late in my case but the information was good. If you can post pictures that is helpful also. The only thing I know that you can do is sand it off and start over or as I did spot sand the worst areas and recoat per the directions.

These new finishes are much different than what the old timers remember doing back in the day and I’m an old timer and you can’t just paint these on thick like you used to do varnish and it will level out and dry clear.

On a personal note I know how hard it is working with family member helpers. Just remember they are trying to help and family is more important than anything else. Sometimes you have to regroup and try again.