I'm helping a friend of mine with a current finishing issue that we're having a hard time figuring out. He finished a entire kitchen about 2 years ago with a precat surfacer followed by Sherwood Waterbased topcoat. This was a system recommended to him by an SW Tech rep and another sales rep. He has had multiple jobs have adhesion and flaking/chipping issues. Some of the jobs have been very minor and in high impact areas where we didn't chalk it up to failure as much severe abuse form the homeowners.

This current one however, while having flaking/chipping issues in some expected areas near the sink and lower drawers, has equally as many issues on less used portions of the cabinets. He used MDF paneling with maple frames, the MDF portions are all completely fine and intact with no flaking. While we will be fixing the issue and know how to move forward, we still are trying to figure out why this has/is happening. He did 2 coats of the surfacer, followed by 2 coats of the topcoat. Sanded prior to application and in between topcoats with recommended grits. Also for what it's worth, the flaking areas are both the primer and topcoat having adhesion issues. Have bounced a lot of ideas around but looking for any insight if someone has had a similar issue or good explanation. Have a lot more information as well so any follow up questions are encouraged.

Recommended this recommended that.This is like asking to a Home depot worker what kind of paint is good for ceiling :))
Sorry for your trouble really i feel you but at the end of the day i blame the finisher or builder.It is his responsibility and responsible from final product.
i never and ever follow a rep or anybody who recommended or suggested.
get a gallon of what ever you will use and check your equipment compatibility.
test on a panel again and again.use on your shop or home or relatives for a year of period at least and see whats going on.At least this is what i do.I am a cabinetry guy.Paint guys knows better than me but you never can be enough careful using products unknown to you.
Paint company's change their formulas frequently and its a serious problem.
Since there are many variables what failed here your best bet is to call and get that rep who recommended and let him deal with his problem.
Good luck !

I had an issue with this years ago with pigmented precat. It turned out I had sanded the wood too fine and probably with too dull of sandpaper. Pigmented wouldn't hold on these burnished surfaces. Since then I only sand to 120 grit which leaves something for the paint to grab. I also use conversion varnish now and haven't had that issue again.

Coating reps are the reason I went back to school to take organic chemistry, and then in the field of Decorative and Protective coatings chemistry.!! Reps cost me thousands of dollars worth of re work, in the first couple years of my first business, and all I got in return was free replacement materials...period...!!! The labor and overhead, were not covered.!! Unless your a big user and I mean a million or more a year, they won't cover all the expenses they really cost the finishing company.!! As for now, if you want a proven system, I would talk to local finishers that work at well established companies to find out what their using that has proven to be a good reliable system, and go from there.!!

All are excellent responses to the reality of reps advising finishers or those in the trade of what is recommended to use. At the same time, there might be some reps who know coatings on how to use them best, its not worth totally relying on that info, without doing your own proper testing for quality and strength. As Yavuz mentioned, It really is your responsibility to ensure that the system you are using is a proven system, so that means you have to prove it to yourself, that it works well, unfortunately, that's the reality.
They usually don't know what to say to you when something goes wrong, and to them its just a surprise,
maybe they will comp you a few gallons, which in our world is really amounts to very little compared to all the work that was done.
A lesson to be learned from this failure is the best thing to gain, so it is not repeated.
Find a system that you can be confident that works for you. If you like solvent base you will have to search out and try using coatings that have a good strong primer and are designed to be used with certain top coats. If you do decide to go to the water base, then you will find a lot of products that are actually outperforming solvent-based pigmented finishes.
There are a lot of options out there.
I can only recommend what has worked for me. So far pre-cat was great for a while, but then Conversion Varnish was even better, but now I find catalyzed water base to be the best.
Coatings are evolving, formulas do change so keeping up with it and pivoting to use what is best will always fall on you.

I read the spec sheets for the precat surfacer. It makes no mention of using a waterborne topcoat. It only specifies a solvent topcoat.

Likewise, I wouldn't trust a rep. Unless, the tech department verbally told me that it is acceptable, I would not waste my time. You would have been better using BIN.

I had a similar issue with SW products supplied by the rep. When we had issues we called SW directly and the tech guy's immediate response "that finish combination won't work" I told the rep this and his reply "the tech doesn't work in the real world. I have lots of shops doing this" Our issue was a non catalyzed primer(white) and a catalyzed top coat (also white) The top coat was T77, don't remember the primer. My solution was to call Miller and get a different product. The SW rep no longer speaks to us.