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“I almost wanted to call it ‘Fire Wood,’ because it just looked like it was on fire,” he laughs. “But I guess you really can't call it ‘firewood.’"
The flame-like 3/8-inch engineered canarywood (also known as Tarara amarilla) came from Bolivia. It was imported by Artisan Hardwood Floors (Austin) and installed by Chad McBride in a condo in Austin; Luckey was tapped to sand and finish the 850 square feet.
“We had done canarywood before, but none that looked as colorful as that one,” says Luckey, who grew up in the hardwood flooring industry. “No matter what I did with the pictures, it just didn't give it justice."
Luckey started sanding the thin flooring with an 80-grit and moved to 100-grit on his drum sander, then used his HydraSand up to 120-grit.
"It was actually really nice to work with,” Luckey says of the canarywood. “The dust wasn't really that bad. It wasn't like ipé or jarrah or something like that where it kinda burns the sinuses a little bit.”
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The only real hiccup came from the giant bay window in the condo itself that kept leaking. And while the canarywood did grow up in the tropics, the rain pouring in wasn’t ideal.
“It just kept leaking, and we had to go repair it a few times,” Luckey recalls, noting that they started to run out of canarywood to replace the damaged boards. “But they ended up fixing it, so it ended up going well."
After sanding, Luckey gave the floor one coat of sealer and two coats of waterborne finish, wrapping up the project in four days.
Whether it’s called canarywood, Tarara amarilla, or Fire Wood, Luckey won’t be forgetting its stunning coloring anytime soon.
"It was just so beautiful,” he says.
Suppliers:
Canarywood Flooring: Artisan Hardwood Floors | Abrasives: Norton Abrasives | Sanders: Lägler North America, American Sanders | Sealer, Finish: Bona
