We have recently had a 4 in santos mahogany floor with some maple accents installed. The initial snading and finishing left linear grooves in some boards and some high points where boards butted against each other. The floors were therefore resanded to bare wood and recoated. The result was a generallized fine swirled pattern in the finish. The floors were again sanded to bare wood (a new subcontractor) with good result. He applied 3 coats of semi-gloss. a fourth coat of satin was applied to the floor a stairs so they woul match. This resulted in lap marks in the finish so a fifth coat of 50-50 satin and gloss was applied to everything 2 weeks after the fourth coat.

that was 3 weeks ago. We waited 3 days and moved in. Since that time we have found that whereever we put furniture on felt pads or rugs, the texture of the felt or rug is left in the finish and does not wipe off.

Installation was part of a remodel. Some new plywood subfloor was installed. The floor was laid in /dec or Jan and the last finiishing was in May. We live in the northeast on a tidal cove and it has been raining for most of the past month.

An independent floor person was brought in and said that it was a bad batch of polyurethane. It should cure eventially. It can be buffed and screened to the point that a fine powder is produced and then left open for a few days before appliying new polyurethane and need not be sanded back to bare wood.

These are my questions:
1. Have others had this problem and solved it, if so how?
2. What is the most durable finish that could be applied? I know that moisture-cured is best but not readily available.
3. How many resandigs are possible for 3/4 in flooring?
4. Is the solution which has been offered and does not require going to bare wood reasonable? If it failed would it do so immediately or are there long term concerns?
sally

Lenmar is a quality brand of poly so I highly doubt that the finish is bad. But I think that due to the weather and the thickness of the coats, the finish is taking a long time to cure. I agree with the other contractor that you do not have to sand the floors all the way down to repair the topcoat of floor finish. Since you have been through so much already, find the best floor finisher in your area and pay him whatever he charges to perform a recoat on your floors.

The fact that this pile of urethane has been put over Santos Mahogany is no trivial matter. OMU will often take much longer to cure over exotics.

Thick coats will be much softer then multiple thin coats.