It’s been almost a full year since we’ve posted in our blog and we’re well overdue for an update! This has been one of the most challenging years with the pandemic but in many ways Koality Woods has grown immensely despite the circumstances.
We’ve moved our shop to a new 10,000 sq. ft. factory in Kapolei, HI where we now have access to heavy industrial equipment to produce more great Koa tonewood for ukuleles and guitars! We’ve been extra busy milling ukulele wood lately using many great species endemic to Hawaii such as Naio and Kopiko Ula. We just completed production of over 270 Koa ukuleles and a decent amount of Koa acoustic guitars and also a few Koa electric guitars. We are quickly becoming the largest retail provider of ukulele tonewood in the world! We have plans to offer more curly Koa tonewood as soon as we can start travelling to Big Island again.
Now that we have a large supply of Koa ukulele and guitar wood we are going to transition to offer Koa wood flooring for sale. While the cost of solid Hawaiian Koa wood flooring can be quite expensive, we have a few methods to keep things affordable for those looking at premium hardwood flooring options. True Hawaiian Koa flooring used to be manufactured in the late 20th century when the cost of Koa was nearly 20x less than it is today, but due to the high prices and limited supply, almost no local companies are producing authentic Koa hardwood flooring.
We aim to bring back Koa wood floors to the homes of Hawaii! While we currently offering ¾” tongue and groove Koa hardwood flooring, we also intend to offer a prefinished Koa engineered hardwood flooring. The benefits of engineered Koa hardwood flooring are numerous and really help to decrease maintenance and cost!
Engineered Koa hardwood flooring is similar to the ¾” Koa hardwood tongue and groove flooring we already offer, but instead of the entire plank being solid wood, there is a ½” Baltic birch base that a ¼” top layer of Koa wood is glued onto in a press. The plywood base allows the Hawaiian Koa wood flooring to be used in environments with higher humidity without the risk of warping.
Engineered Koa wood floors also come with the benefit of using 75% less wood than traditional Koa hardwood T&G flooring without sacrificing the ability to refinish the floors to extend their life. With a solid Acacia Koa hardwood floor, you are only able to sand down to the top of the tongue and groove, which amounts to ¼” which is nearly the same thickness as our engineered Hawaiian Koa wood flooring.
Because we use 75% less Koa wood when compared to tongue and groove hardwood flooring, we are able to keep the costs lower in additional to more responsibly using the very limited supply of Koa wood.
We anticipate that within the next thirty days we will have our first samples of engineered Koa wood flooring for sale in addition to solid Koa wood trims and moldings for all of your hardwood flooring needs! In the meantime, please feel free to see an example of our Hawaiian Koa Hardwood flooring by clicking here!
