Thanks Meredith, ours felt less gritty under foot after a few days

I used Bona Kemi Naturale on new cork floors in 2007 and _loved_ it... and we had 2 large slobbery dogs who never managed to damage it. We moved 2 years later and now, almost 10 years later, I'm finally about to install cork w Traffic Natural in my new kitchen.

My old house is on the market again. From the pics, the person I sold it to did no upkeep... but the floors look great and the blurb said 'the best thing about this house is the cork floors: look of hardwood, ease of laminate'.

'Ease of laminate' indicates to me that they didn't try very hard to take care of it, which is a pretty good endorsement for the finish!

I refinished my 40 year old oak floors last month - Duraseal stain, Bona Traffic HD Satin - 2 coats + sealer. Refinisher has 20+ years experience with Bona and clearly knew his stuff and cares. Let the floor cure for 3 days, moved back in but did not put down rugs for 2 weeks, to ensure the floor was solid. Love the way it looks BUT today the phone rang while I was washing my hands. I answered it and dripped a couple of drops of water and Dove sensitive skin bar soap. Which stained. I cleaned with a wet paper towel, then with Bona Hardwood Floor cleaner - did nothing, i emailed Bona today and will call tomorrow.

Please tell me that I didn’t just spend thousands for a finish that will not wear properly.

I am a retired custom home builder and we recently redid our first floor flooring. 4" white oak ... Bona stain - (1) Coat - (2) coats of Bona oil sealer ... (1) final coat of Bona Traffic HD Extra Matte. All work was done by an experienced flooring contractor friend of mine - 30 years of family flooring installation experience. Floor was hand scrapped and properly "sanded" and swept between each coating . We had used Bona Traffic HD matte on the previous 2-1/4" red oak floor we had down - but had to completely strip and start over due to a water damage issue (than God for good HO insurance.

So the Bona Traffic HD Extra Matte finish is very low sheen or NO Sheen is a better descriptor. It is close to our previous Bona Traffic HD matte finish - but it seems even flatter. The floor is spectacular ... don't get me wrong ... but today we found that when we used the Bona hardwood floor cleaner spray - it leaves really bad streaks and "clouding" ... went over a major walk area - completely - wiping with the grain (not that it should matter) .... and it is still cloudy and looks bad. We have used the same Bona hardwood floor cleaner for 5-6 years on the previous Bona HD matte finish - never had any issues at all like this.

Next step is to get the Bona rep out to see what is going on.

Any one have any ideas or experience with this type of "clouding" problem.

The finish is about 5 weeks old ... was allowed to cure properly ...

Hi, we have to pick a stain color for our red oak 5 inch floors. I hate the yellow hue of natural poly floor and want something warm yet more neutral but still light. any suggestions on best color? thanks in advance

Gina Moffie - I also had red oak and hated the "yellow" so my installer suggested bona. It is in process now of being put on so cannot speak to experience yet but looks good and much better than other samples he showed me that all looked yellow tinted.

Traffic HD Satin,

Takes a massive beating and keeps asking for more. No issues with any of my customers that have active families with dogs!

Diamond State Hardwood Floors

302 257 1605

I do a lot of professional woodworking and finishing. I work a lot with the same types of products (2k urethanes, etc).

All of the bad pictures here are adhesion failure, and roughly all adhesion failure is caused by bad/improper preparation (which in flooring is the installer's fault). In my world, basically all finishing failure is our fault. Almost always improper prep and we own up to it (sometimes compatibility, but still our fault). It seems in the flooring world, folks seem to blame the products more. There is an old saying about craftsman and blaming tools that is applicable here :)

All of the 2k urethanes mentioned here (glitsa, bona, etc) are about the same in durability (at least by any scientific measure). They are all slight variations on the same chemistry. GlitsaMax and Bona Traffic HD are the same - both hardeners are HDI + HDI based polymers.

They are also not "easy" finishes to work with, despite everyone and their brother using them.

Among other things, they are not very tenacious at bonding, and so require careful prep/direction following to make them work properly. Anything else is luck.

I would put money none of these failed bona floors were properly sanded or sealed with the proper sealer after staining (which the instructions clearly state to do). The only time Bona does not require sealing over staining is if you use a *Bona* stain. That is why it says "Apply a Bona sealer or Bona stain and 2 coats of Bona Traffic HD®"

Glitsa *also* requires a sealer under it's 2k finishes like GlitsaMax.

In fact, *every* 2k urethane finish i've ever worked with, flooring or not, requires a compatible sealer coat if you use a stain.

Some can be used as their own sealer coat, but it is very uncommon.

The best advice I can give anyone here - get someone who really understands these products and is either specifically trained by the company, or understands how they work for real.

Also ask them for a reference for someone whose floor failed. so you can ask them whether the flooring installer stood behind it or not. In any finishing business, nobody gets it right 100% of the time, and if they are good, they should have people where it went wrong and the installer made it right.

PS @drewmich Not sure if you ever got an answer, but that is almost certainly catalyzation failure - the floor is clouding because it did not fully crosslink. Usually this is "didn't mix hardener in right ratio", but also could be that the hardener expired somehow. They react *very* quickly with air, and once opened at all, only last a week or two at the most.f

@Daniel Berlin Thank you for the summary above. We are in the process of finishing our new white oak floors. This thread has been very helpful. I only wish I had come across it sooner. I don't know the specifics of the product(s) we are using exactly except that it is Bona Natural. I was told that there would be 3 coats. The installer's team also mentioned doing a Satin coat and he would then do another coat of Satin or Matte after I have seen the sheen of the first Satin layer (which I'm assuming corresponds to coat 2 out of 3 respectively). I want to keep the floor light (not yellow), not too shiny, and need it to hold up to water and 3 very active small kids. The first coat was done Friday (today is Sunday) and I believe it should be finished on Monday or Tuesday. Are there any questions I should be asking the installer at this point to ensure a good outcome. This thread had made me a bit nervous.

For the best natural ‘raw’ look would you reccomend:

1. one layer of Bona white + Bona traffic naturale 2x, or

2. Bona natural + bona traffic naturale 2x

Thanks

I have to make a decision on Monday. The flooring guy my gc uses has put down samples of duraseal provencial and Bona Satin finish. He says no sealer is needed. When you are building and your contractor uses certain people and they both are insistent about their processes, what do you do? The house is almost finished and my hands are tied. I have read other threads about people not sealing if you have the desired color you want with a stain. Why would anyone do something they know to be wrong. This person does all of the contractors floors and he says he hasn’t had any calls regarding problems with what he uses. Very scary for homeowners!

Judy, I imagine you have already had your floor done. I just wanted to tell you that you do not want to trust the way the flooring contractor has " always done it" trust what the manufacturer tells you to do and Bona absolutely recommends a sealer or their stain, which includes it own sealer before any kind of top coat. I imagine the sealer is locking in the tannins? Not sure. I just know that I listened to a guy who "has always done it this way" and said not to listen to those who say the wood changes color and now I have brand new white oak stairs that have an ugly yellow cast to them.

Smileygirl - did you get that yellow cast because you did bona traffic over a different brand of stain? Or did you get the yellow cast from using only bona traffic directly on top of raw wood? I hope you found a solution to the problem!

bono traffic says 350-400 sq.ft coverage per gallon! is this per coat or for the two coats?

bono traffic HD says 350-400 sq.ft of coverage! is that per coat or for a two coat application?

how can I tell the difference between Red and white oak that's finished?

Hi Bona Experts... need some help, can we put bona satin as second coat on top of bona extra matte traffic hd..

Is sheen on semigloss Bona more comparable to satin oil based?

Following...

Just recoated our whole place with Bona Traffic HD extra matt. Was all going really well until the last room, which seems to have turned out a lot glossier than the rest of the house (see photo). It’s now been drying for a day and it’s still glossy (the rest was matt by now). I did have to mix part of a new 4L container of HD (yes, extra matt!) to do this room, so may have used a slightly different HD/hardener ratio? Any ideas on why this happened, and whether it will get better with curing?

So wanted to provide an update. We went with Bona ClassicSeal (doesn't add any color) and two coats of Traffic HD in satin. I'm VERY happy with it. Yes, I could have gone lighter (using the NaturalSeal, which has just a tad of white, but not as white as NordicSeal) but our choice is timeless! It's the perfect choice if you want light AND classic.

Hi Michelle, could you post a pic?

My Bona HD Traffic in Semi gloss failed. And it was not user error. In fact floors were so well prepped that we spent 18 hours sanding, removing dust and revealing a gorgeous raw wood. We followed bonas instructions on using their stain - their can stated to let that particular stain dry 3 hours in nice weather. Which we did. Not a heavy hand application and remaining stain wiped up with a dry cloth. Soaked right in and looked great. We then mixed the two part system and shook it for near a minute and let sit 8 minutes per jug instructions. We then applied it, waited 8-9 hours and applied a second coat. The product looked great when dry but 12 days into it, I can scratch it off with a finger nail. Bona rep said oh, you should have allowed 8 hours to dry. I told him my can stated with this color to allow 3 hours. He could not really comment more as I told him I did exactly what the instructions stated. We even stayed off the floor for 7 solid days. It has failed and it was not user error. I think Bona is putting out faulty products or not owning up to the fact that perhaps their hardener is faulty. Also I would like to say that something interesting did happen as the product was drying. It turned white. But after two hours it was crystal clear and beautiful. Unfortunately for me I will have to cover these floors with laminate as I don't have the stamina to lift this heavy equipment and move out all of my furniture again.

I’m sorry this happened. My understanding is that even flooring professionals need special training to apply Bona Traffic HD. I don’t think it’s recommended as a DYI application.

The people who applied mine hand buffed it and vacuumed before every layer. Did you apply the second layer straight on the first without any sanding?

WE did it exactly as described. Actually we did a floor in traffic HD 5 years ago turned out perfectly. Here is what the problem is. Bona instructions on the stain. Bona stated 3 hour dry time on the can. That's what we did. But unfortunately after I called Bona they said 8 hours. I asked him then why does it state on the can 3 hours? Bona if you are coming across this for the love of all things that are good please change all the labels on your stain to allot 10-18 hour dry time. Why on earth would you put 3 hours it makes no sense.

They are both great products, the Bona hd is commercial grade, meant for high traffic, and usually more$$ for the product. Both are fine and expect to have an upcharge for it. Get the Satin, it's a lighter gloss. And you can apply a coat without sanding, but only if it doesn't fully cure so it can mechanically bond

I meant bona HD Traffic

@Michelle Pat I would love to see a pic of you red oak with classic seal and Hd traffic satin.. did you have samples of the natural seal done? I saw you were originally going with that.. this is where I am leaning but saw you ended up with classic. Any pink? With classic? Thank you in advance

We had our 12 yo white oak floors completely redone in January due to water damage. The floors were originally coated witb an oil-based poly over raw wood - no stain - and held up beautifully. For the refinish, there was a coat of Duraseal stain, a sealer of some sort, a coat of Bona Mega in satin and 2 coats of Bona Traffic HD in semigloss. The floors are beautiful,

but they are scratching terribly. We waited 5 weeks before letting our cockapoo dogs (15-25 lbs) inside and we had their nails ground, not clipped, beforehand. They are leaving scratches literally everywhere they step. We had them inside for 5 years wirh the old floors and there were no visible scratches, even with them zooming around the house (which they havent done on the refinished floors. Help!!! Isn't Traffic HD supposed to be better than this??

That's awful. 😔 I've been miserable with my butter soft pine floors with bona traffic hd finish (I don't think the people that finished the floors used enough product), but my 14 lb dog has luckily not been causing any damage.

@Leahan - when you say scratching, do you mean the film peels off (and scratches through the stain), or that it leaves dents in the oak? The dents would be normal. peeling film or scratching through to the stain would not be.

I have a mix of oak floors that are mostly 100 yo, and some newer (just from people maintaining the house over the years). They are coated with Duraseal, then bona traffic hd. The three dogs (boxer, lab, german shepherd) can dent the floor, but they don't scratch the finish off or the stain off. If the stain or finish is scratching off, it's almost certain they installed it wrong. Especially after 5 weeks.

As i've gone into, floor installers love to blame the products, when 90+% of failure is due to installer failure (bad prep, or bad mixing, or ...). I've watched people use 3 month old open hardener they had laying around (it expires in less than a week unless you use bloxygen or other things), then blame it on bona traffic.

In your case, i have literally no idea why you would ever use bona hd over bona mega over sealer, and i don't know a single good installer who would do this. Bona mega is not the approved base coat for anything other than bona mega, you'd have to abrade it very well to get anything to stick on top, and it still wouldn't work as well as having just used two coats of traffic (IE it can only hurt you). Seems very suspect to me.

Note also that the sheen of anything but the last coat doesn't matter. What sheen you get is totally dictated by the last coat you put on. The only thing the intermediate coat sheens affect is the clarity of the grain you see through the top coat.

The absolute ideal thing there is to have every coat but the last be gloss - that will give you the best grain clarity no matter what sheen you want on top. But unless you are putting on more than 2 coats for some reason, have really spectacular grain would (IE curly maple or something, not oak :P) or "super-dull" over "super-dull" i wouldn't necessarily bother. In your case, even if using Mega made sense using satin, then semi-gloss, would make the grain muddier.

Any competent installer knows all of the above.

@Daniel Berlin, thank you so much for taking the time to respond. We were supposed to get 2 coats of Traffic HD. i was suprised when the installer said he'd used Mega for the bottom coat. I originally asked for a satin but it was too dull, so we switched to semigloss for the final coat. The scratches aren't dents. In most cases, it looks like the shine has been removed. There were a few patches that showed up after some guests were over - I'm guessing shoes? I'll send pics below.

First - The second pic you gave looks really weird. It looks like the grain is *very* deep on the board to the left. But maybe it is just old and scratched over the years?

It's hard to tell how deep those scratches are. Can they be easily buffed out with a non-scratch

sponge?

If so, they are normal surface marking, nothing to worry about.

If not, you can at least trivially test the floor:

First. Is there a really hidden section (you only need about 1 inch square) that you don't mind possibly damaging? It shouldn't if it's in good shape, but don't know what shape it's in, so figure i'd warn you.

Two things to do:

First, drag your fingernail across it, see what happens. The correct answer should be "nothing at all". No scrape, no scratch, no nothing. You should be able to try to scrape it (drag it hard across at any angle), dent it (press your nail in), etc, and nothing visible *at all* should happen.

If that does something, it's busted, you don't need to test further.

If it does nothing:

Take a piece of masking tape (not painters tape). You only need an inch. Press it very hard into the coating, and rip it up. The coating should not come up.

The real way this is tested is actually even meaner to the floor - normally you take a box cutter, cross-hatch the floor (IE cut it in a grid pattern), and then put the tape on it and rip it up. It still should not come off. I"m just assuming you don't want to cut up your floor.

If neither does anything to your floor, the floor coating is at least in reasonable shape.

It won't tell you what caused the scratching (glass particles in sand is the usual culprit. They are *very* hard, and you will be hard pressed to find a coating that stands up to them), but it would tell you that the floor coating appears to at least be behaving.

Thanks. We'll try the tests. The boards aren't old or scratched, but we had noticed that the finish doesn't seem to have filled in any of the grain to level the surface like the oil poly seemed to have. Is this normal for the Traffic HD?

We just had our white oak floors done with HD Traffic Satin. Just want let people know it is even lower sheen than I was expecting. If I had to do it over again, I would want to see how the semi gloss looked. It may not have been too much sheen for us.

I recommend doing your homework and hire a true pro!!

I dont know if this is the right place to post this but any assistance is appreciated

-

To start the story off - we had a contractor that did a very poor job at sanding and applying the varnish. They had sanded the floor, and applied varnish weeks later, so any dirt from their boots was trapped under the varnish.

I had done a lot of research with which products to go with, and settled on the Natural Raw HD as i liked the matte look, and it would provide years of durability.

Over the weekend we had a wood installer resand our floors and apply these two products. He applied one coat of Bona Natural Primer and 3 coats of Bona Traffic Raw HD.

When he had put the primer I had noticed some roller marks, which i had brought to his attention. He told me that this was normal and that they would go away with time, and once the primer had fully dried.

I was staying away from the home so that they could work properly, and after they had put the second coat of Bona Primer I had noticed that these marks are still on the floor. It is most visible when you are facing the floor with the sun to your back.

I love the final wood finish, but is it true that these marks will go away with time? what could be the cause of them?

The wood installer we went with exclusively uses Bona products, and so i would assume he knew what he was talking about.

Online it said that if the primer is not shaken enough these white marks could appear.

Any assistance is much appreciated!!

(Can upload more pictures if that would be of greater assistance).

After Bond Natural Primer:

after the 3rd coat of Bona Traffic HD RAW:

Ugh, I am so sorry. =( My installer (who also exclusively used bona traffic products) did a pretty miserable job as well, but I don't have those streaks. =(

Dog drool patches before cleaning.

Patches after cleaning with Bona Hardwood cleaner.

These are pictures before and after using a Bona Floor cleaner as suggested by Bona...

I had a professional company sand and finish my floors and install Bona Traffic HD. My dog drool was next to impossible to clean. When Bona suggested their cleaner I used it with the residue better but the floor itself depigmented. Looks ugly!! Bona has not responded. I think their product is defective and reacts with dog drool in some way.

We had 3,400 sq ft of new white oak flooring installed and decided to use Bona HD Traffic. 2 months later, here we are. We have had hardwood floors before and never had any problems until we used Bona HD Traffic. We called Bona and they came up with reasons why it wasnt their product. They also said BONA IS NOT WATER RESISTANT OR WATER PROOF. …

Has anyone had experience with Bona

polyurethane products? This is a result of a

spilled drink. This is permanent!!!

A phone call to a Bona representative left us

with this response, "We do not say our product

is water resistant or water proof." But they do

tout on their website that they are the most

durable polyurethane on the market against

scratches and chemicals? If anyone has had

issues regarding the product and how it was

resolved, I would really appreciate some input.

Bona has random failures that aren’t explainable. I use Loba products at the moment and they seem fine. No call backs unless it’s trade damage.

No it doesn't.

Again, this isn't magic, it's science. "Not explainable" is just not a thing.

Having spent lots and lots of time taking apart failed coatings, 99.99% of the time it's installer error. Most of the time, it's simply not prepped or primed properly. 2k urethanes are not amazing at bonding, and delamination is just about always prep failure.

Beyond that, it is usually something in the list of

Not catalyzed properly, pot life not observed, reusing hardener that shouldn't be reused, etc.

All done to save money/time.

I"ve seen a *very* small number of failures that amount to "bad batch of finish" or "bad batch of hardener". It's super-rare, and there are comparable rates among all manufacturers i've ever seen.

The truth is that most hardwood finishers have basically zero knowledge of the chemistry of the products they are using. It's understandable, it's not what they are trained for.

But it causes them to just make lots of random statements about why things failed or didn't, and mostly blaming products when the products are fine.

There is an old saying about craftsmen and blaming their tools that is very applicable here.

You'd also expect to hear more complaints about Bona than almost anyone else, because their market share is much higher.

IE If Bona had 40% market share, and the next largest competitor had 10%, and both had the same relative number of complaints (IE 1% of people complained), you'd see 4x as many complaints about Bona.

In practice, all of the various manufacturers make reasonable products, and none has magic bullets the others do not.

They are fairly simple formulations in the scheme of things.

@Cancork Floor Inc.

yes! i am dealing with this right now bona traffic ultra matte. gorgeous. no sheen except the sheen from our feet all over the place. the bona deep cleaner did not remove them. any ideas on how to clean them? they look awful. i was thinking a drop of dawn liquid detergent in a test spot bc dawn cuts grease. open to ideas . thank you! i called Bona and they said the deep cleanee but it wont get the oils

Has anyone had experience with Traffic HD Anti-slip? we are considering using it for our stair treads. We originally wanted a Matte finish, but it is only available in a Satin finish. It will be going on top of 1 coat of Nordic Seal.

What are people doing between 2 coats or 3 of traffic hd? on top of the sealer? got a house with a toddler and ive heard 2 is enough but then have people saying we should do 3 but then others saying 3 can look shinier and more plastic