Cabot's CFP Floor

There are a lot of bad reviews on this product which almost convinced me not to buy it. I did use it in a tropical region and had great success with it. Used on bare timber. I chose days of lower humidity to apply. It went on easily and the result was amazing. Much better than I had expected. I left a day between coats, with a super light sand… Read more ·  1

between coats. The first coat showed some white patches for a few hours after coating, but they disappeared within 4 hours. after that, none showed up on any subsequent coats. So to balance things up a little - I could not be happier with this product. Great result.

This wonderful product has come in for an unfair pasting on this website and so I thought I'd add my experiences. I've used CFP floor varnish to fix up wear spots before selling my previous house and again to protect the floors when moving into my new place. The product is easy to apply and, because it applies relatively thinly, seems to match… Read more ·  1

the sheen of the previous coating. It's dry enough to walk on in about two hours (whereas oil based finishes need at least a day- that just doesn't work for a place that's being lived in). The only word of caution that I would raise is that you have to use the product EXACTLY as per the instructions. It is not as forgiving as CFP's oil based product. In particular, please take care to clean your floors really well beforehand. I had a problem in one corner of the hallway, where, ahem, my cat had done a bit of a pee that must have partially soaked into the timber (so mopping alone didn't get all of it). That resulted in some white precipitation. The fix is easy. Just sand back with fine grit sand paper and re-apply CFP floor varnish.

I probably wouldn't use this product to coat raw timber, but for re-coating existing timber (whether previously coated with water or oil based products), water-based CFP floor varnish is hard to beat.

DO NOT USE this product – Would strongly recommend to NOT use this product. The temperature and humidity requirements for the 7 day cure are out of touch with most of the weather conditions in Australia. The three coats recommended went on beautifully, looked fantastic on finish and then over the next month after application it became increasingly cloudy, white bloom… Read more

patches expanding across large areas of the space. In response to advice from Cabot’s I had fans, heaters and dehumidifiers running 24/7 in the space, to no avail. The floor now looks ghastly. The worst areas look like white glue has been applied to the floor. Huge expense in buying this product, the effort in sanding and staining floors prior and a massive energy bill trying to mitigate the problem. Enormous effort and money wasted. Calling Cabot’s today they had no further advice yet to sand it all off and start again. Like that was easy. It’s not just the sanding but the clean up afterwards that takes a toil. This is 100’s of hours of my life and $ I will never get back. They offered me more of the same water based product, yet why would I ever use this product again as it will never cure in my weather conditions here in the Yarra Valley? They would not offer compensation or an oil based alternative. Deeply disappointed and devastated. Please read all the negative comments here and take them to heart. DO NOT use this product unless you are guaranteed to have goldilock conditions for a full 7 days including overnight. Who has 25 degrees every day including overnight for 7 days?

Solution for removing clouding – I got major clouding on my new staircase after applying the last coat of CFP satin floor varnish. It got rather annoyed after all that hard work so before going down the sanding back to wood path so I played around with one step to see if I could chemically remove it because I read that Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline) removed it. I tried some Vaseline… Read more ·  1

in a small area and it worked but I wasn't prepared to cover my entire stair case with Vaseline. After some playing around I found by using a saturated rag with Methylated Spirits it removed all the clouding quite easily. I then let it sit for a few days to see if the clouding returned and it didn't. I then purchased a new can of Varnish because I think my problem was I didn't stir the the varnish and work the matting agent in together properly. There was probably a larger amount of matting agent left in the bottom of the old tin. I cleaned up all the remaining steps with Methylated spirits and then gave them a rub down with a Scotch Brite Pad. I then mixed my new tin of varnish until my arm got cramps to ensure the matting agent was thoroughly mixed in with varnish and applied another coat. Every single step and riser came out perfect.

Solid product – We have wooden boards of low quality throughout our house. We don't plan to stay for another ten years and so we were hoping to avoid sealing the floors before we go. However the highly worn kitchen area was just too bad to leave any longer. Needed a low odour product that didn't require extensive floor preparation. Cleaned the floor really… Read more ·  1

thoroughly and a very light sand. Four coats of CFP Matt finish (30 minutes each coat) and it looks a treat. Easy to apply, easy to clean up, almost no smell. If I knew this was going to be durable (I will find this out in time) I would have given it five stars.

Inconsistent shin, expensive but spreads even – I bought 1 litre and another 4 litre of the same product, with satin shin but got a completely different shin across products. The product spread even but not the shin you would expect, and for the very high price of the product, you expect a more consistent look. Their customer service was slow, but eventually they did replace the product and were very generous Show details ·  3

Waste of time and money – This product deserves a zero star or -10000 stars. I wasted a few precious weeks sanding my floor and then using Cabot’s water based cpf. It’s more than a few weeks now and the finish keeps becoming cloudy whenever there is overcast condition. You don’t want that from your floor. Stop wasting time and money on cpf and use an oil based feast Watson finish or something. This is a useless product. Show details

Good product. Needs many coats – This is a good product, however it needed lots of coats on our old raw timber cypress pine floors. The floors were sanded to 120 grit. It took 8 coats to get a decent result, and needed some sanding between coats to hide grain raise. The cam says 3 coats. After 3 coats the floors were extremely blotchy and inconsistent. We used a brush. In retrospect I’d have used the oil based. Longer to dry, but less coats, and no grain raise. Show details

Patchy white – Cabot’s CFP water based Matt finish, applied over a black polyurethane floor, I have applied 2 coats, it has now been 2 days and the floor now has very patchy white marks all over. I’ve had the air conditioning on to help drying with no success. Not sure how to fix? Show details

Bought the 4 litre. Applied to handrail of stairs it was removing the stain – Needed hard seal for stair treads and the handrail and a tabletop. However after I had stained and let dry for three days it's started to ake the stain off. Show details

Fit for purpose – Old house, Jarrah floor in kitchen hall and "front room". all pretty distressed, some big gaps between 125mm wide boards (to give an idea of age of house), particularly kitchen so a high gloss finish would not look good without full-on sanding back and considerable filling to bring to a smooth finish. Sanded with 60 grit disc then 120 grit. … Read more

Swept, vacuumed then damp mopped. First coat on around 2pm. Second coat down 9am next day. Looked good. Would have probably benefited from 3rd coat, but owners unwilling to pay for extra labour (selling house}. I chose water-based finish, as my experience was very positive from refinishing a school Gym floor annually over 5 years TIPS: Ensure you are applying coats during suitable weather conditions. Keep a wet edge if possible. Apply 1st coat in one direction, then alternate with subsequent coats, with final coat along floorboards.

Great result - satin finish – We used the satin finish and it came up beautifully. Instructions were easy to follow. We did three coats and it looks great on our cypress pine, it’s clear and didn’t yellow the timber.  Show details ·  1

It did the job it said it would do! – Pulled up all of the carpet and vinyl underneath of late 40s floors and found beautiful hardwood. Sanded and stained and applied ctp covering to 4 rooms. I followed all of the directions and am absolutely happy with result. First room i learned a lot about technique but after that, it was pretty straight forward. I also made sure that i applied… Read more ·  1

with minimal humidity around. I've product recommended 3 coats, i did 2. I would recommend this product and would definitely use again. I had no experience and did a lot of research about the product first. Very happy.

VERY disappointing - would not recommend to anyone – Our new cypress pine floor was sanded, and washed with Cabot's Cleaner, dried, then given 3 coats of CFP Gloss Floor Oil (24 hours between each coat and a light sand by hand). We left it for over a week before walking on and no furniture for over two weeks. The finished house has been sitting vacant for a couple of months so the CFP certainly had… Read more

time to dry and cure. We moved into the house just 4 weeks ago and now find that the traffic areas are now very dull. The non traffic areas are still nice and glossy but the traffic areas are now VERY dull. It is only myself and my wife that live here and we do not were shoes inside the house. Did a 'live chat' with Cabot's today and they finished up suggesting that we polish the floors!!!!!! Not happy and would not recommend it's use to anyone.

Still cloudy after 3 weeks! – Not dissimilar to several other reviews, we’re having problems with clouding after 3 weeks. Weather has ranged from 40deg down to 17 deg (in Leura NSW). The use of a hair dryer (as suggested by Cabots help hasn’t made any difference). We are hoping to list the house for rental but with this issue we are now looking to resand and look for an alternative. Very disappointing and not one to be recommended. Show details

Cabot's CFP matte water based – I've never stripped and revarnished floors before, applying the CFP was really easy and turned out brilliantly. I read the reviews before I started, so I made sure I didn't shake the can, but mixed it up really well. There was no clounding or anything unpleasant and it looks like it was done by a professional. Great product. Show details ·  1

Excellent product – I saw some negative reviews but my experience using this product has been excellent. I have used other water-based polyurethane products on our baltic pine floorboards many years ago and it was time to recoat. A preparation that didn't require sanding made for a quick and dust-free start to the job. It was very easy to apply and because it was… Read more ·  1

quick drying meant I could get the job done in a weekend. And what a brilliant finish - looks a treat. Highly recommend.

Worst mistake of my life – I applied this product to a floor that had been sanded by a professional tradesman. He suggested that I do the coatings because the job was only small. I applied the CFP to the floors last Sunday with the correct applicators, and to ensure it wasn't too cold, as I live in Melbourne, I had the central heating on 22 degrees all day. Unfortunately… Read more

the floor has dried with white cloudy patches throughout and looks terrible. I have spoken to Cabots who advise that it can take up to 7 days to dry and harden. I have now gone 5 days with no sign of the cloudy spots disappearing. I have just spoken to them and they now say it could take longer to dry. So what do I do? I still have to put down 2 more coats. At this stage it will be Christmas before I can use the room.

The oil based product is fantastic - I only used this one as the room is adjacent to our bedroom. One positive is that it doesn't smell.

It's not clear! It makes the floor look dreadful – Their is a stain running through this and what happens when you apply it to a kitchen floor as I did all the woods come up in a dark tint, looks disgusting! I had the rep out to look at the product the liquid in the tin is a darkish oily looking liquid which is certainly not clear! Could not get my point across to the rep who still maintained their is not staining or tinting going on, despite the observations i pointed out to him.

Absolute crap. Crap customer service too – I have used Cabot’s for years as a Carpenter but not again. Did a floor like I did a 100 times before. Sanded back to bare timber,vacuumed and washed. Mixed CFP and hardener, first coat went on perfect. 12hrs later second coat caused first to bubble. So re did the whole process again but waited 24hrs for recoat and it did it again. Called Cabot’s… Read more

and it was all blamed on me. Definitely not a bad batch or they would’ve heard about it by now. Made it clear I urgently want a rep to come out and have a look at this-we ripped out the entire kitchen and had to finish the floor ASAP for installation. After emails useless emails asking more details- for their “chemist” they disappeared. Well I went through the whole process and used Feast Watson with great results. Very unhappy with Cabot’s and they have now lost a $20-30 000.00 a year client due to their own pathetic staff.

Read Reviews and took the chance – Have a small house I re sanded the floorboards and used this product was perfect for 1-1/2 weeks then white milky parts started showing all over the floor. Has been 4 months now and milky areas are still all visible. Dissatisfied.

Good product – I varnished some cork flooring in two rooms a couple of years ago, and very happy with the results from this and will use again. I liked the easy wash up and it did not take very long to dry, i used a extra wide brush and it was done in no time,  Show details

Saved $$ worth the gamble on $140 tin – Saved $$$. Seven years ago we sanded and polished our floors in our investment property using Cabots. Seven years on due to high traffic and low capacity tenants who didn’t take the time to care for things, it was looking a little tired. I used satin in two rooms. A day later hubby used satin but may not have stirred it properly and it was… Read more

also raining. Advice was to open up and let it dry. Didn’t work. Advice was to sand it. Groan. No time to hire a sander and lift into the car. We bought gloss and it came back looking great! Glad we used our instincts and took a gamble.

Cabot’s are No.1 – Renovated our stairs by ripping off old carpet. Most floor specialists told us we couldn’t revive our mdf treads. Called Cabot’s and they didn’t miss a beat. Patiently informed us about everything we had to do step by step. The result? A gorgeous new staircase with Cabot’s products. Thrilled with the company’s product and their outstanding service!  Show details

Fantastic product – Great product that is easy to use and pretty forgiving if you're an amateur like me. Did a surprisingly good job at reviving our patchy timber floors. Seemed to soak into the more bare bits and even out the floors over all. Really quick and easy to apply with a roller.  Show details

Easily applied . Floor shines Great product I have used this products three times now over the years Show details ·  1