Flooring finishing question- how many coats of poly are enough?

[Mike Heaney]

I am in the process of completing the new floor in my workshop. The surface is wide plank t&g over osb, laid on PT2x4's on their sides over poly over concrete.Rigid insulation between the sleepers. I have stained with a wipe on base, and done the first coat of oil based poly (satin finish). I am seeing recommendations for at least 2 coats of poly, with suggestions for 3. At what point is the benefit of an extra coat of poly not worth it? Am I good to stop after 3 coats, or is there benefit in a floor to going on for more?

One related note- hand wiping off the stain on 750square feet of floor was a complete pita. Please don't tell me there was an easier way!

thanks

mike

[Steve Milito]

One related note- hand wiping off the stain on 750square feet of floor was a complete pita. Please don't tell me there was an easier way!

thanks

mike

A 'Cuban broom', you wrap rags around a floor squeegee and hold them in place with rubber bands.

[Tom M King]

For the rare times that we stain a floor, we do it with a buffer and a piece of carpet under it. You can find youtube videos. I'd not use polyurethane on a floor. I used Moisture Cure urethane since the mid 1970s, but for the past couple of decades I've used Bona waterbourne products. We just did a floor where the owners wanted it to look as close as possible to the bare wood color, so we did one coat of Naturale to hold the color, and followed with two coats of Traffic HD. It's probably at least as hard as the old MCU's, with almost no VOC's, and much easier to apply. You can find all sorts of videos on applying the different Bona finishes. Norton makes some really nice "sand dollar" disks for floor buffers that leave a perfectly swirl-free finish between coats.

http://www.nortonfloorsanding.com/SandDollar-Pads.aspx

[Mike Heaney]

Thanks Steve and Tom for input.

I did receive you posts too late to change direction, so I now have a stained floor with three coats of oil based poly. After 4 days of drying I started moving machines back into the shop at the weekend. Everything seems to be holding up well so far! I will try and put together a workshop project thread later and cover all aspects of this renovation