One of the most common floors on the Gold Coast and one of the best to finish. Blackbutt sands to a pale honey gold, holds a coating beautifully, and looks entirely different depending on what you seal it with.
Blackbutt is a hard, dense eucalypt with a straight, even grain and very little figure. Freshly sanded it is pale straw to light golden brown, sometimes with a faint pink cast, and it has gum veins running through it that read as fine dark lines. Those veins are the timber, not a defect.
It is a Janka 9.1 class hardwood, which means it takes a knock well and sands clean. The density does mean the grit sequence has to be worked properly: skip a grade on blackbutt and the scratch pattern from the coarse cut will show through the finish.
Under a clear water-based coating blackbutt stays pale and modern, which is what most new Gold Coast homes are after. Under a solvent polyurethane it warms towards amber and looks more traditional. Both are legitimate; they are just different houses.
It also takes a limewash, though it never goes truly white because the base timber is warm. What you get is a soft, sun-bleached grey-gold that suits coastal interiors very well. And it stains evenly, which is not true of every Australian hardwood.
A lot of the blackbutt we finish is a floor and a matching staircase, which is the hardest part to get right. Treads and risers have to be cut and coated to the same standard as the floor, by hand, with the nosings blended so there is no colour break where the stair meets the landing.
It is slow work and it is worth doing properly, because a staircase is the one part of a floor people look at from eye level rather than from above.
Because it is dense and the coatings bond well, a blackbutt floor is a good candidate for screening and recoating rather than a full resand. If yours has gone dull in the walkways but is not worn through to bare timber, that is a one-day job at a fraction of the cost of a full sand.
No. Those are gum veins and they are a natural feature of the species. Filling or hiding them would make the floor look artificial.
Only if it is sealed under a solvent-based polyurethane. A water-based coating keeps it in the pale gold range for the life of the finish.
It can, and it is one of the better Australian hardwoods for it, but the warm base timber pulls the grey towards a greenish tone. We sample it on your floor first.
That is what the free in-home estimate is for. We will look at your timber, show you samples on it, and tell you honestly what will work.
Tell us about your floor and we will get back to you fast, usually the same day, to book a free in-home look and an honest price.
Local timber floor sanding, polishing and restoration across 97 suburbs - from the Logan line and the hinterland to the NSW Northern Rivers. View all areas we service
Fine FinishedFloors
Floors worth showing off - cut back, stained and finished by Gold Coast specialists since 2010.
22 Springsure Drive,
Mudgeeraba QLD 4213
Monday to Saturday, 7am to 5pm
Servicing the Gold Coast, Logan fringe and Northern NSW to Ocean Shores. Free, no-obligation in-home estimates.