Polycrylic taking forever to cure?

[Zelg]

Hey all....so I'm at my witt's end with this dang cage I built. I originally stained and finished with polyurethane and after like 6-8 months it still reeked. I went through a few boneheaded moments before I finally just bought a belt sander and sanded all of the inside walls, floor and ceiling and started over.

Most recently (4? weeks ago) I stained it with minwax cherry stain which is oil based I think. I then put on 3 coats of minwax water based clear satin polycrylic. Google searches had told me via forum posts that polycrylic cures to no smell within a few days up to two weeks. Well its been about a month now and it still smells like hell. I've tried a few days with a fan blowing on it with doors open....I've tried multiple days with a lamp on inside with the doors closed and yet I have not noticed any sort of decrease in the amount of fumes when the heat is on and doors closed. Heck, I can still smell the fumes when its just sitting there with the doors open. Of course not as strong as when the heat lamp is on and doors are closed but still...

I'm at a total loss as to what to do other than just sanding everything down and leaving it bare wood (I have acrylic sheets I'll be using to seal the floor with silicone.)

Has anyone else had this bad of an experience with polycrylic? Is it possible that what I'm smelling is the oil based stain below the polycrylic and I just need more top coats? Building this cage has ended up thus far being an enormous waste of time and money. I could have probably bought two cages by now. So frustrating.

Anyways, Hope someone can maybe point me in a good direction with this...

/venting