What Wood Coating Type Gives The Best Overall Finish & Durability?

Many companies are keen to find a coating that produces the best overall finish and durability. 

The key points based around the 3 principle coating types: Water-Based (WB), Polyurethane (PU) and Acid Catalyst (AC) are summarised below.

These coatings are often favoured since they are environmentally friendly, with very low solvent content and minimal odour, yet they are still able to produce high-performance results.

Some water-based wood coatings have a very light texture feel to them but a good quality topcoat is equal to any solvent-based option. Also, the clarity of lower-grade water-based lacquers over certain stains and/or dark timbers can provide a slightly milky look to the clarity so ensure you check this out when comparing products.

PU paints and lacquers are strong contenders due to their high resistance properties in harsh environments and rapid drying/curing times.

Polyurethane coatings have an excellent 'slip’ when running your hand or cloth over the surface. The overall clarity is of polyurethane is good and the use of non-yellowing activators helps to secure long-term colour stability of the wood coatings.

Polyurethane has an excellent level of abrasion, impact and chemical resistance. However, this coating type has lower coffee stain resistance than premium water-based wood coatings.

AC Coatings are suited to certain industries or specific criteria, where they offer an extremely durable and effective solution.

Acid Catalysed coatings provide a smooth ‘slip’ feel that is much similar to that of Polyurethane. The initial clarity of lacquers and colour stability for acid catalyst is classed as fairly reasonable, however, this wood coating type is likely to yellow over time due to the limited UV resistance and reaction to some substrates.

Acid Catalysed coatings are durable in the sense that they have good scratch resistance and protect well against certain chemicals such as cosmetics. However, this coating type falls short in other markets such as kitchen furniture manufacturing as it is not so resistant to hot and cold drink stains.