Actually, I just did a little googling out of curiosity and I’m now realizing the shit grows wild all over the place here on Maui. Apparently all those things I thought were a weird kind of spiky palm tree are actually agave… we even have one that grows nowhere else in the world except for on the summit of Haleakala called Silversword (well, it’s a close cousin to agave)
Spoke with the forestry dept of the DLNR and apparently it shouldn’t be too hard to get a permit to cut and gather wild agave. Now all I gotta do is find a Kahuna to bless the plants before I cut them and I’ll have one hell of a blank. How do you guys mill them down usually, since I know the stalks can have bends and twists in them. Am I better off bringing it to a lumber yard and having them turn it into something useable?
Your first surfboard?
I have shaped thousands of surfboards.
All by hand.
Agave is by far the most difficult blanks I have shaped. And I shape some very different stuff.
Wear a mask. The dust is toxic!
Sorry I can’t offer some tips.
Spent years developing my own process.
Good luck though.
Hello, thank for hsaring the video…you have inspired me to try to shape my first surfboard after years of research…Yes, I confess, I have read too many things, and based on my budget I will try to do the cheapest=
an agave surfboard. Well, I have cut the agaves, like 20, some of them looking dry and strong, some not…I have choseen the best ones…my neighbor have a wood shop right in front my house, so he will help me to cut them down and get the strips…I have found my template, a 5’5’’ fish kneeboard ffrom Steve Lis, a board that I wanted to try before…everything is almost in the way to start this monday…I have few questions to ask to the agave builders:
1.- Can I use normal white glue for wood to glue up the strips togheter?
2.-after shaping, should I use any wood coating to seal the agave surface before glassing, I mean, otherwise the agave will suck resing making very heavy the board?
3.-I will use a block plane to shape it, because my limitate budget, do you use a surform on agave blanks, they behave similar than polyurethane? the agave is soft, nope? I mean, I can use dragon skin for the rails? or just sand paper?
ok…I guess that I will learn by trial and error, but any advise will be appreciated!
