It's 70 bucks a gallon. It might be worth it, idk. I'm curious as to how much harder it is then one of the name brands that's 20 bucks a gallon cheaper.
I don't know how much harder it is than cheaper polyurethane, but I do know the General Finishes the hardest polyurethane you can buy at the retail level.
Any oil-based polyurethane is going to be cheaper than a water-based polyurethane. The big trade off is the drying time, because the oil takes a really long time to dry and then cure.
Waterlox Original comes close to the General Finishes (the VOC-compliant version is the harder than the non-VOC-compliant versions, but is $109 a gallon). Waterlox is out of Cleveland, so you may be able to score a deal or something. It's a 24 hour dry time between coats, and you can walk on it after 24 hours in sock feet only, but no furniture or anything for 7 days, and takes 30-90 days to fully cure. Probably 60 days before you'd want to put a skid on it.
To get harder you need to go with a poly-carbonate/polyurethane mix. The absolute hardest finish is an "acid-cured" Swedish finish polyurethane (sometimes called conversion varnish sealers), and it has to be primed and then coated with a conversion varnish topcoat, which acts as a catalyst to harden it. It has a very strong smell and takes only 2-3 hours between coats, but 30 days to cure before it can handle putting furniture back in place (although few contractors will actually use it in a residence), and 60 days before it's fully cured. It's only available to the pros, though, so you;ll have to get a contractor or maybe a hardware store to order it for you.
A step below "acid-cured" but a step above water and oil based polyurethanes is "moisture-cured" polyurethane. As with the "acid-cured" it's not recommended for DIYers and will need to be obtained from a contractor. When used in a home, the home must be vacated for 2 weeks.
I've put polyurethane on plenty of furniture, bookshelves, other woodwork, and have done it to kitchen cabinets a couple of times, and I think I used pretty much the $35 a gallon stuff. There's only just so durable you need the finish on furniture and cabinets to be. About 3 years ago when I needed to do the floors in the house, I did a lot of research on it. I also talked to 3 remodeling contractors and a couple of home interior stores that sell paint and stuff. All 3 contractors recommended either General Finishes or Waterlox, and said General Finishes is the hardest you can get without using the pro stuff, and none recommended the pro stuff for use in a home. Both home interior stores recommended General Finishes.
I asked a couple of the contractors about use for the truck, they both said General Finishes, for sure. And that Waterlox is also a good choice, just not quite as durable for sliding heavy pallets. But that was more for a finish appearance than a utility standpoint. Neither recommend the acid or moisture cured product, saying that if it was gouged it would crack and peel away. Great for high foot traffic, but not so much for things that could damage it.
I think pretty much any polyurethane you use is going to be OK. Water dries quicker, oil takes a lot longer but is cheaper. The polycrylic isn't recommended for floors, and it's what I've been using. It holds up well, although I do have to reapply it every couple of years. This next time I'm using the General Finishes, though.
The Minwax Spar Polyurethane pictured above seems to be holding up, and it's actually the
exact.. way.. wrong.. kind of polyurethane to use on a floor. Spar polyurethane has a lot of benefits, but foot traffic and standing up to the abuse of pallets ain't one of them, as it just rubs off. But even at that, Bill's is holding up fine. That, and the polycrylic I've been using, is why I think any ol' polyurethane is gonna be fine.
For the curious, spar polyurethane is an outdoor finish and offers great UV protection. And it stands up to the heat and cold, where furniture will expand and contract with the temperature. So it's relatively soft and flexible. It was developed for, oddly enough, spars. A spar is a thick pole used on boats, like for the mast, the yard arm, boom, gaff, anything like that. When the mast pole, boom, gaff, whatever bends with the wind, the spar polyurethane bends with it instead of cracking and splitting.
As for the price of the General Finishes stuff, or the Waterlox VOC, the General Finishes coverage is 150 square feet per quart. If you have a 4x12 deck, that's 48 square feet. You need three coats so that's 144 square feet. So all you need is a quart. For the Waterlox, its coverage is only 125 square feet per coat, and you'll need 4 coats of Waterlox, so 192 square feet, which is 2 quarts.
