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boisarc, I think you nailed it on the mechanism of wrinkling. The basic remedy is that you want to prevent MCU from pooling anywhere on the surface of a bait before it has hardened and out-gassed most of its solvents. I've been using MCU several years. Storage problems, yes. Application problems, none. I don't use any solvent based coating underneath the MCU and I make sure the acrylic paint is dried with a hair dryer as I paint the bait. Hang the bait to dry to allow all excess MCU to drip off the tail. Voila - a no muss, no fuss topcoat that looks great on a bass bait and is very durable in a single coat. Ready to fish in a few days after the MCU has cross-linked. It has worked in my garage in any humidity, at temperatures from 45 to 85 F. Are there other good topcoats? Yes! I also regularly use Devcon Two Ton, which is my gold standard for a reliable esthetic appearance. I have Solarez UV cured polyester resin on hand if I want to use it. Do solvent based concrete sealers work? Obviously yes but I feel I have enough choices on hand and I'm leery of the need to use multiple dips and weeks-long cure times. There are lots of topcoat choices these days. All of them work to some degree. You just need to gain experience with the one you choose and work out the "gotchas" that are inherent in all of them.

As I use epoxy primarily as a seal coat, the hairdryer is a no go, as heating epoxy on bare balsa will cause a literal flood of bubbles to erupt into the epoxy.

Any of you guys tried .......a hair drier? Low heat. Those bubbles just disappear.