Just received a custom table finished with minwax water-based polyurethane. It's been about a week so I tested applying pressure with my fingernail, which did leave a small scratch if you look closely. I'm just wondering if this is expected for polyurethane finishes or if they should be completely scratch resistant. I'm mainly concerned with if it's fully cured or not (for health reasons)
If the expectation is that it should scratch a bit with my fingernail then that's fine with me. Just don't want to be using an desk that isn't fully cured because that might not be safe from what I've been reading.
More details from a comment posted below:
Since I don't know how hard a fully cured product feels, my main question was how can I tell if it is fully cured or not. The person who made the desk put on 7 coats within 20-30 min of each other spread out between 2 days, so people have told me it may never fully cure so I'm wondering if even if will never reach the expected hardness of a properly applied product, will it still be safe to use as a desk and occasionally eat on (its hard to tell from the smell since the water-based stuff has low odor)
