Drying Green Basswood

[TT123]

I brought home from a trip to northern Wisconsin a 8" diameter by 5 foot log.
This being as big as I could handle. The ends are coated with wax from my wood carving instructor and the bark is removed.
I am planing to leave it as is to keep as much usable wood as possible.
Should I air dry it in my garage or bring it to my basement? How long do I wait to use it, and then do I chunk it up or take it to the band saw with a friend and slab it the best I can now?
Thanks for any input.

[RUssL.]

I have dried quite a bit green basswood in the warehouse where I work.

The relative humidity is quite low so it almost dries too fast, causing splits in the ends of the 2" thick slabs, even with the ends sealed with AnchorSeal.
It takes 3-4 months for 2" thick 6' long slabs to dry to between 10%-13%.

An unheated garage is the best place to dry slab wood. Do not put it in the basement.

It's good that you took the bark off. Keeps mold and bugs at a minimum.

If you need it thicker than 2"-3" I would suggest something like cutting off the last 2 feet and slabbing that at 4" thick (or whatever) ...of course that will take longer to dry and will be more likely to split at the ends...

The old adage of allowing 1month to dry for every 1" of thickness is highly unreliable.

Good luck,
Russ

[TT123]

Well I think for now I will put the log in the garage standing on end through the winter and in a year see what I have when I section and slag in more manageable chunks.
What do you think of that? And is there anything I should do at that time to get the best use of this wood. Or do you have any better ideas.