ok so i’m new to swaylocks and i did a search on agave boards and all that i got was that if you cut them down you’ll get all itchy and that you have to take them in to a mill worker to finish them off.
so i got 7 of these logs and 4 more on the way, no itching but the thorns!
ok so they are large in size and still kinda green what does the dry time look like 1yr more or less? should i protect them from bugs or anything else.i’ll be drying them inside out of the elements.
the other thing is do you have to take them to get milled is this something that you can do at home (hand plannier,bench plannier, sawz-all??)
if you have to take them in @ 80.00/hr how long on each log?
if there is anyone that can give a digital hand in making these things come to life i would love that
First off, take a machete or drawknife and cut all the leaves away. Wear gloves.
In the jungle of Costa Rica, I’ve seen innovative ways to slice logs into lumber… including a pit with one guy in the hole and one guy up above wielding a vertical two-man hand saw. Those were dense exotic hardwood logs but they eventually got some beautiful planks.
Agave stalks are pretty soft. A basic sharp handsaw might even do the trick if you’re motivated. A lot of cutting to be sure, but it could be done. A bowsaw might do the trick as well and prevents the loose end of the blade from drifting off course. If you clamped or tacked some finished lumber on each side, you’d have a guide to follow. A long blade in your sawzall would work but the loose end of the blade will have a tendency to drift. An “Alaskan Mill” hooked up to a chainsaw wouild work fine.
Once you get some planks sawed off, you’ll have some surfacing to do. A self feed thickness planer would be really nice at this stage but woodworkers in the past did without. With enough time on your hands, you could do it with basic hand planes and sanding blocks like the old timers.
Stack the planks with stickers (spacers) in between to dry them out. It’ll take awhile if they’re green.
thanks should i start making planks before or after the logs ar dry? and its ok to have one end be smaller than the other, or do i need to make like say 4x4’s
I have had stalks split while drying. I’m not sure if cutting planks before drying would have prevented that from happening. Rather than 4 X 4s, you might think about planks that are flat on two sides and use the natural curve in the stalks to fit your rocker profile. If the plank is 3" thick and 8’ long, the other dimension (side profile of your board) could be variable.
I would think assembling your blank would be easier if the glued surfaces are parallel but after checking out George Greenough’s original balsa kneeboard at a local surfshop I noticed that some of the balsa planks were tapered at one end. It’s probably more a matter of aesthetics.
With any luck Jim Phillips or Gary Linden will jump in on this. They know better than anybody what’s going on with this material.
I have not had direct experience with agave, however, I have harvested many trees over the years and have learned through experience how to dry lumber. Mill the lumber into your planks or beams, paint / seal the ends with parafin or paint to slow the drying out the end grain. Properly sticker and stack the beams outside in a well ventilated area without any direct exposure to sun or direct moisture (cover the stack and weight it heavily). After a month or two (six months to a year with hardwoods) bring the stack inside the shop or garage and allow to continue drying stickered and stacked. When drying balsa for surfboards, unlike regular furniture lumber, stack and sticker the beams to allow the natural bend (rocker) in the board to remain
if i cut them in to planks should i cover the raw part of the stalk like i would cover the ends, or does that not matter. also when glueing all of the planks together should i get a thin stringer that i like the rocker of to use as some what of a guide for the rocker of the planks?
With all due respect to Richard McCormick, master woodworker…
I like to think of the cell structure of the Agave as more sponge-like than straw-like. By that I mean the cell structure of wood is like lots of tiny drinking straws clustered together. That’s why balsa, for instance, sucks water up the grain when dinged. Agave seems to me to be more porous throughout. I don’t know if sealing the end grain is really going to make a whole lot of difference.
Also, the stuff seems pretty rigid. I don’t think it would be very easy to adjust rocker by bending and gluing to a stringer. It might even make fairly good stringer material by itself.
I’m sure it should be sealed with a cheater coat, tinted epoxy/microballoons, or whatever before glassing.
ok so i went out to the garage earlier took a chalk line out marked out 3’’ on the small end of the log and scribed a mark along the lenght with a sharpie and took out the fine tooth hand saw and went to town. this took some time alot of time. i think that i need a course tooth saw. what should the width be on this beast? something like 26ish with the unfinished planks i’m trying to make a 10’0’’ 23’‘x3’'LOG
Once the surfaces that you are going to glue are smooth and square, I’d say you can adjust the total blank width within a very close tolerance to your planned shape. I’m not sure there would be much benefit to going wider as long as the blank is clean and square within your template pattern.
If you have a template pettern that is 23" wide, I’d say a blank with clean squared edges 23" wide will do. Just lay out your pattern, trace the outline and stick to the line when cutting out and truing your outline. Everything outside 23" is needless waste that you will be workng hard to get.
When ripping the stalks by hand, a pruning saw might be better than a carpentry saw. A chainsaw might be even better.
Where do you live? I have some stuff that will help make this much easier.
thanks i live in ventura i’ll go and get a new saw today at the lowe’s or sears wish i had a chain saw but this will work just fine do you think that i should cut them into a long wedge or say make 3’’ wide planks both wats im only cutting two side so when its all glued up it will look like huk fins raft oh should i use resin to glue it or something with more balls
I would think you’d have to mill the stalks as you would if it were a log, or branch of wood. Why not screw a straight piece of wood to it and run it through a band saw. Then rip off of that stright edge.
Please don’t cut down stalks in public open spaces. If you must take them, it is best to wait for them to fall over on their own before removing them. I would hate to see all the agave stalks disappear around the county because of surfboard shapers. Poaching is poaching – whether you kill animals or remove native plants.
agave can be bent to fit to a rocker, but most of the one’s I’ve seen it has that natural rocker curve, so you band saw it along those lines, it is spongy . . . most of the time you get it with weird curves along the stalk.
This one looked it its younger years something leaned on it and bent it slighly, then it grew up and was in a pass where wind kept blowing it this other way. fun
Also have lots of stalk (stock) available, I was watching them split it with a band saw and sometimes the inside has this rot thing so you have like a huge straw with agave debris in the middle . . .
the better quality stuffs the blue agave but thats much rarer
Cut them stack them loose in a dry cool place. No direct light…or they will crack. If they dry too fast, they will crack, if they dry too slow, they will rot.
They are soft, so the bugs love them. If your serious, buy a wood moisture meter. When It comes to milling at home, John M hit it right. either you get an alaskan Mill, or you going to need to set up some kind of huge rip fence…good luck on this. remember they taper and they get smaller in diameter, and they are round. So unless you screw a straight edge to the log, then push it through a band saw or table saw, you SOL. And show me someone who has a 24 in circular saw blade, or a bandsaw with a 18 x 18 throat. All the home wood worker stuff will be tight at best.
You can cut it into smaller pieces, get one good side on a table saw, then run it through a thickness planer, then do it again on the other side. Now you got 2 good sides, then you can run it through a 4 in edge planer…You could free hand it, then plane it…so old school it brings a tear to my eye. But after the second board you’ll be screaming " why didn’t I pay to have someone just mill this shit"
You my friend are taking on a very big project, your about 18 - 24 months out.
I have no plans to plunder the local landscape. I have 2 big stalks in my backyard, and there are several locally off of trails where I run. Since I pass them regularly, I 'll just watch for them to fall then make my move.
