I watched a video about applying poly that talked about "tipping"--lightly running just the tips of the brush across the area just after coating it in order to pop any bubbles that have risen to the top in the last, oh, minute. You don't wait too long, bcs you want that top surface to still be wet.

There are other tips--don't shake the product; have the brush be just barely wet with thinner before you dip the brush so that the liquid pushes the bubbles out before you even get poly in the brush. (he shows it with mineral spirits bcs he's using oil-based poly; we did it with water bcs we were using polyacrylic)

We did pretty well!

This is it:

Bubble-Free Polyurethane Application Technique

Thank you sooo much!

Jane

You might also wipe on a final coat -- thin the poly about 50-50 with mineral spirits and wipe on with a soft cloth just enough to get even coverage.

I'm glad someone suggested wiping on the final coat--I was just coming back to add that (I only just remembered to do so, and fortunately byhammerandhand had done so. There are good YouTube videos for that too.