I have Christopher Schwartz' book on workbenches and have been in the planning stages of building a bench for some time. I was originally going to use doug fir for the simple reason of economics, but recently acquired some maple from a friend.

The maple has been flatsawn and stickered for almost two years. It spent its first summer in a shady spot outside before being moved into a barn. The slabs vary from about 3-5" in thickness. The slabs were 12' in length, but before transporting them home I cut them into 5' and 7' lengths for storage purposes (I plan to build a 6.5' bench). I checked the freshly cut endgrain a day later, and it measured 15% on a cheap moisture meter. The rest of the wood in my shop reads 6%, though not on freshly exposed endgrain.

While 15% is not dry, it's also not green. On his blog, Chris encourages building benchtops with slabs having moisture content as high as 60%, but goes on to suggest using kiln dried lumber for the undercarriage.

15% is not 60%, however, which leaves me unsure of how to proceed. I would prefer to avoid buying extra lumber for this project, as I now have a surplus of this maple. However, if it's likely going to cause problems, I may err on the side of caution and shell out for some kiln dried lumber for the legs and stretchers.

Thanks,
Josh