NaturalSeal may have the word “seal” in its name, but it is designed to be a base or primer coat only!

Bona NaturalSeal is designed to be the foundation or first coat of a three-coat water-based system, so don’t just use it for all your layers, thinking you are being clever and saving money.

This is not designed to be the tough outer layer – it is designed to be the best bonding layer. It is runnier than Bona’s topcoats (Mega or Traffic HD) so that it soaks into the wood and grabs hold. Those high-solid topcoats just don’t go into the wood as well as a sealer does. But the topcoats adhere easily and well to this sealer. And layers of polyurethane are only protective if they can bond to each other.

Seal coats like this help prevent “side-bonding” which is the tendency for strong finish coats to literally glue boards together along their edges, which prevents floorboards from gapping evenly during the dry seasons. And finally, sealers are an important first coat on oak floors because topcoats are known to pull the tannin up out of the grain and into the finish, leaving blotchy appearance.

Bona makes six different sealers, each a slightly different under-color.

Bona NaturalSeal is designed to make the wood look like nothing has been applied to it. You would think you would use a crystal clear coat for that, but no. Even a clear coat tends to slightly darken the appearance of wood once it dries. But NaturalSeal adds the merest hint of white to help cancel out that darkening effect. So, if you want to keep the look of a bare, freshly sanded floor, we need a seal coat with just enough white to make it look invisible. Sometimes it takes great art to achieve the appearance of artlessness.

A warning though. Even if the amount of white they have added to this material is very slight, it can still cause challenges during application. Any area where you leave a slightly thicker coat of NaturalSeal will appear whiter because there is more pigment layered on that spot. If you need to repair a spot with sanding and reapply, where you overlap the unsanded wood may show an actual lap line.

Available in gallons only.

Sealers do not come in different sheen levels; choose your sheen level with your topcoats

This product is not freeze-thaw stable, so don’t let it freeze. Because we ship this product from Minnesota, there will be some days when simply can’t ship this product until weather conditions improve. Call the store at 651-698-5888 if you are trying to order in winter and have a tight time deadline.

Pete’s has a 30-day return policy – what’s up with that?

It may seem draconian but hear us out. We set this return limit because waterborne finishes are chemically delicate. If they are stored at very high or very low temperatures, or temperatures that fluctuate, the de-foaming agents become unstable.

The longer a gallon of finish is out of our control, the less we know about how it was handled and stored. If we can’t be sure of how a gallon of finish will behave, we won’t resell it. But if we can’t resell returns, we lose our already low margin. So, yes, we are firm on 30-day returns on all finish.