Hi all, and thanks in advance for your input.

I’m installing new ½” white oak flooring and planning on using 2 coats of Bona Amberseal, after which I’ll apply 3 coats of Bona Traffic HD. In preparation for this, I’ve made a small test piece and I’m encountering a problem.

I treated the test piece just as I will the final floor:

1.Sanded to 120 (from 60 to 80 to 100 to 120).

2.Shook well then added first coat of Bona Amberseal, using a Bona pad.

3. After 4 hours I used the same procedure with second coat of Bona Amberseal (covered only the middle section of the test boards, to see difference between 1 and 2 coats). At this point everything looked fine; the wood was darkened by the Amberseal, the coating was smooth and clear, 2 coats were darker than only 1. Things looked fine.

4. The next morning (9 hours later), I moved on to the Traffic HD. I shook the container well and mixed a small amount of Traffic HD, 1 part hardener to 11.33 parts HD. I mixed this well for 45 seconds, waited 10 minutes for it to settle, and applied it using a Bona pad.

But…after drying everything looks milky and whitewashed...not a small bit, but really cloudy. I understand that the Traffic HD is this way out of the bottle, but it has not cleared substantially at all. After another 12 hours I added a second coat, just to see what it looked like, and the effect was even worse -- very white and blotchy.

More context: the temperature is about 70 degrees and there is no unusual or notable humidity.

Any ideas what’s going on?

Also, the moisture content of the white oak is 8%.

Ok, I figured out the problem. I'm going to post this solution so someone in the future can benefit from my experience.

I called and spoke to Bona (well, I emailed, got no response for 5 days, then called and was put on hold for an hour and transferred, and then spoke to Bona...). The rep kept insisting that because thousands of people have used Traffic HD without this issue that I must be the problem. He implied that I did not mix the ratio between the hardener and HD correctly (1:11.33, by the way; too much hardener can apparently make the final dried HD somewhat milky). I assured him that I had gotten the ratio correct. I used a syringe to do it. And, I repeated the entire process (starting with re-sanding) a second time with the exact same results.

After we went around that bush about 100 times I asked if there were any other potential causes of the HD drying so white. At this point, and only at this point, did he mention that it is possible that if the HD had frozen, or gotten overly hot, this could occur. Good to know, huh?

So, I got a SECOND gallon of Traffic HD/hardener and experimented. I re-sanded and did what I had done before, but applied what I'll call batch #1 (first batch, milky results) to half the test piece and batch #2 (new gallon) to the other half. I did this using 3 kinds of wood this time. And, guess what? Batch #1 looked like crap (white) after drying, no matter which wood it was applied to. Batch #2 looked fine.

To completely rule out the "wrong ratio" hypothesis insisted on by the Bona dude I also applied batch #1 and batch #2 to my Ambersealed test piece, but WITHOUT the hardener (so, no possible ratio problem). Again, batch #2 looks fine. Batch #1 is milky crap.

Conclusion: I got a bad batch of Traffic HD. Maybe it froze or got too hot before reaching me. Maybe not.

The advice though is this -- before applying your HD to the floor, shake and try a small test piece (a few inches will do) with just the HD (no hardener necessary). If it dries clear, you're good to go. If not, don't use it.

Hope this helps someone else someday.