I have an old blank that someone cut the outline and it’s only 18” wide, but the board i have in mind is 20.5”. I have been hoping to find an agave stalk, in order to cut out the original stringer, and glue in a 3” wide agave stringer.
Finally got my hands on a stalk today, but not sure if the center is rotten, or if this is normal for agave. Ive read about density changes, but this seems excessive. Diameter is about 7”, seems like the outer 1” is really dense, but there is about a 5” circle in the middle that is dark and significantly softer.
Should I keep looking for a quality piece? Or is this workable? Would I potentially be able to cut off the 1” widths from the edges and glue them together?
I know nothing about agave other than biological effect of the calcium oxalate crystals it contains. @BarrySnyder was the old member who did a lot of builds with agave.
You might try doing a search here for “Barry Snyder agave.”
I had a stalk of Agave years ago. I hoped to use it for surfboards, but I found the same thing. The inner portion of the wood was too soft to use. Someone said it’s best to let the Agave die naturally and then cut it down. I rarely see the ones large enough for surfboards where I live.
Yeah I have always heard that they often have soft centers. Agave never sounded like a wood that I was interested in shaping. I guess the look is pretty unique. I’m more into Form and Function. Wood, solid or stringers, tail blocks etc. are nice. But—-.
