Not to sure I understand exactly what you are saying, Why are you not just able to cut the cacti in half, and align it or allow it to grow roots?

I see! Thanks for the clarification.
What do you think of this? I think it would be difficult to do (though, I have never had experience with it) but damn is it clever!

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/3255355/page/1

Just imagine how many graphs you could get out of that one slow growing cactus, eh?

Also -- have you looked into the perskopskis or whatever the hell those things are called? It is one of the fastest growing cacti, and can help really build the size of a slower growing cactus.

Today was a very sad day in cactus land. Two gift cactus, both over 5years old, were readied for grafting along with their new stocks. First stock was prepared, first scion cut, first bit of rot discovered. Normal graft turned into partial rib grafting to stock. Not a disaster but now what to do with the other bits that are quickly shriveling their life away?
Disposable stirbar bolts out the door to chop pieces of a prickly pear cactus growing a couple streets over. Guess what house has a 100yr old angry vinegar filled woman with nothing better to do all day but watch her prickly pear cactus? Yeah, no joke, I had spent all of 20 seconds on her yard and cut two new small pads as granny comes out the door shouting at me. At least she wasn't shooting. After explaining that I wasn't vandalizing her plant for fun and was actually going to make more plants she then offered me a whole side of it. Thanks Gram, but I only want a few new pads.
Returning to the batch cave, I perform rib grafts with the good tissue.
I proceed to old small slow growing cactus number 2. I notice this one before the cut. Very hard to see but on two ribs there was soft tan creeping up to the lowest areole. Both planted too deep or winter was too humid. Fuck these things are sensitive out of their element. All the more reason to graft everything when you don't live in the desert. Anyway, it had lots of good tissue so only the bad parts were removed and a normal graft made. This was padded and taped down. I then bump it and it slides. I don't know what I tried to do to save it but I ended up impaling myself and the scion on spines. I was then forced to remove additional tissue an re-graft.
If the partial rib grafts onto prickly pear work out, it is the only way to go. Not only does one cactus make many grafts but it is amazingly simple.
We shall see how they look in 2 weeks.

I actually have a bit of sterile culture technique practice. I have also have been reading about how the tissue culture propagation people prep their samples. I have not gone to their lengths but I certainly do a good job of surgery prep on the surfaces to be cut which I have never seen written online but only makes sense. Why go to all the trouble of having sterile(or close) glove hands and knife if you are going to cut through dirty skin?

That hole punch areole graft page has given me all sorts of bad ideas! I am going to turn another old cactus into 30, or try at least. If I even get a 50% success I still win big. Hell, the earth wins!

I am going to go on a prickly pear scouting mission and plan my heists, er, grafting stock collection. Did you check out the prickly pear grafting pages? That with biopsy cutter areole grafts is bound to work like a champ.

Oh, one more thing, use superglue. All those sites that recommend against it are ignorant of the facts. It works. Do some grafts side by side, with and without and see. First, press the two together and drip super glue to the edge. It will run around the union. Give it a bit to dry, then put a bunch more on the cut edges to seal them. Give it a few minutes then put your padding and compressive force on. I tried just putting a tile on top with one here and it seems to be perfect, so screw electrical tape from now on.

Vesp, san pedro is fast growing! I use it's close relative bridgesii for my stocks. In desert places where it doesn't freeze much people in older neighborhoods sometimes have huge san pedros. Huge like 10+ft across. A little night stealth ninja assault action could net one enough mescaline for a long time from only an arm or two.

If you have it growing just chop the top off and root it properly while the stock branches from below the cut. Be brutal. It is easy to make lots of those cactus from one.

I counted today and 20 areoles could come from the one old plant easy, not quite 30 without getting into the center. Prickly pear are more or less easy to gather. Looks like a go! For areole grafts on prickly pear you don't need a different pad for each one. 3 or more each depending on the size of the pad.

Now to score a 4mm punch. I guess I could buy one from a piercing place.

From the really rotten plant I have 7 partial rib grafts, 6 on prickly pear like from that website I linked and one on T. bridgesii. The other is a mostly intact whole scion on another bridgesii. I can see the prickly pear grafts but am quite excited for the April 2 unveiling of the 2 bridgesii grafts.

T. bridgesii was what was available cheap when I went looking for the pachanoi, peruvianas, bridgesii types. It has been written that they are the same plant from different spine length groups. My only pref would be for the small spines of the san pedro. The others are pretty stabby.

First things first, did you let the cut dry out before putting it in dirt? If you lay them on their sides to dry, keep turning them. I like standing them up on paper towels after only a day or two. Who wants banana cactus?

Also, is it warm enough where you are at? When it is cold cactus don't do anything.

If it is one of the easy cactus like san pedro or blue myrtle, stop worrying. Have you ever seen how shriveled up a cactus can get and still bounce back? If the conditions are in any way acceptable and the bottom isn't rotting then it will root when it roots. Don't leave it in water and don't keep knocking the dirt off to check if there are roots or not.

Less is more with cactus care.

If it is dry then put it into the dirt, not just on it. Areoles are where everything happens.

As was already known, T. bridgesii is a grafting champion. One week out and the old slow growing trippy cactus rib graft and the other mostly intact graft look great. With the rib graft it was impossible(for me) to tell where the vascular tissue was so I just guessed at the line crossing the circle 2 points of contact graft. It seems to have worked beautifully. A safer bet would have been to go for the 1 point cross, but whatever. It is still early and there is lots of time for these to die/rot/whatever but I would bet they are great.

The prickly pear grafts look terrible. My rib graft alignment could(should) have been at a greater angle. I'm not sure if the vascular tissue lines are touching. Only one looks even halfway ok. It is also very obvious that they should have gone into high humidity which I normally try to avoid because of pathogens. The prickly pear graft will be tried again! I just need a couple of the always flowering PP grafts to take with different tissue for seed production.

I am the wrong one to be asking about rules

If you are doing surgery on anything, plant or otherwise, and you want it to live, make it clean, go quick but sure and take care after. I actually really dont do shit for aftercare, but some people have long routines of slowly re acclimating to outside conditions.

I think the pre cleaning is very important. I lay the cactus on their sides and spray them with bleach water while rolling, give it a min, then wash with bottled water. If I had BAC piercing solution I would probably use that but I dont. You dont need to go as crazy as the tissue culture guys do, but to not do anything seems stupid. Clean knife through dirty flesh?

I have grafted plants in the dark with compression(and superglue!) for a week or so(whenever I remember), then to the shade for a week or so without the tape and then back into the sun. I have sunburned pe to the yote before, so dont think I am some master at this.

But from my ever increasing experience... My next round will be beheading, graft the bottom upside down on a tric, graft the core of the top slice(apical meristem) on top another tric, then cut the ribs and graft them individually. I really am so impressed with how well the rib graft has done I cant believe it. I might even try that areole grafting but with a biopsy cutter.

Super glue the edges and exposed cuts of all grafts! It really fucks the fuzzy areoles up(looks terrible) so be careful with that and glueing yourself. Dont worry if your papertowel pad bonds itself into the cactus. Just remove what comes off easy and leave the rest.

Pretty much exactly this with cleaning first and superglue after you have smushed the two sides together.
hxxp://www.kadasgarden.com/grafting2.html
but I wrap e tape all the way around the bottom of the pot,because my stock cactus has evil spines.

It has now been a few weeks and the mostly complete top scion(with rot removed) has plumped and looks great, except for the round two of rot removal. If you have a cactus that you are cutting rot out of, chop everything that even seems even the slightest bit off and clean the knife after every slice. Better in this case to cut a little too much then not get it all. It sucks...

The other rib graft Plumped right away. I would guess any day here, perhaps a week at most and one of the areoles will go all pimple style then rupture with a whole new pup. I can't wait!

That middle one is on about a 10" section. It is the one that I had to remove the rot. Twice. Sorry if it wasn't clear. I don't have a pic of it that shows the stock but doesn't show too much of the batch cave.

The bottom one is on its own root. Not for long! I might try putting one areole on the root when I chop its head off.

If you have ever thought that you might want to grow these, do it. Rewarding even without harvest, perhaps more so.