What an interesting and origional idea. I don't think what you have in mind will be determental to the slab. You may injoy it so much that it stays like that. Looking ahead to try and answer questions yet to be asked. Cracking can be prevented or at least miniumized by sealing all end grain with paint,clear coat or wax. If the top tends to retain dirt and/or stain,seal top and bottom surfaces. While sealing slows rate of drying it certainly doesn;t prevent drying. Sealing end grain is normally done on all air drying lumber to prevent cracks. Never alow pledge or other products containing silicon near it. I don't even alow the crap in my house,there are better sulutions for dusting furniture. How bout posting a pic or two after legs are mounted?

Based on your description, I don't know if you have a slab with long grain or a disc cut from the butt which is all end grain/short grain. If the latter, then sealing is of no avail, it's going to dry in a short time as well.(Moisture can move much quicker through the end grain than the flat grain). If it develops significant checking like spokes in a wheel that run to the center, you will need to build some kind of base or reinforce it with a frame so it can stand on legs without danger of splitting into pieces.
If it's a long-grain slab cut off the log like a piece of lumber only bigger and with natural bark edges, then cool, and yes the 1" per year drying rule is pretty much in effect. And absolutely seal the end grain so the checking does not run out of control.
Casey

Look up "solar kiln" on the Internet and you will see a number of different ideas on how to make a solar kiln.

You could easily build a small, solar kiln with clear plastic + some blocks to hold the wood off the ground. Support the slab on stickers on top of the blocks, make sure you have some ventilation in the plastic, and in 4 weeks to 3 months you should have a dry slab - depending upon your local humidity and solar gain.

I have a 3-inch thick, 14-foot long slab of walnut drying in my garage. I have it on custom sticker supports that I've built to keep it off the garage floor.

The slab is covered in two layers of burlap, with five, 5-gallon buckets filled about 1/3 full of sand on stickers on the top side to keep it flat.

When I got the slab it had recently been cut, and the moisture measured 22%-24%. I've had it for 6 weeks and it's down to 18%-20% (depending upon where on the slab the moisture is measured).

However, I live in New Mexico, and in the winter the humidity is extremely low - about 5 - 10%. The slab will be flipped over every 8 weeks so that it cannot develop sags, and if it still needs to be dried in the July - August time frame, it will go into a homemade solar kiln until it's at about 6-8%.

thank you for all the input.

Yes i do have a end grain piece and thank god it will only take a few months to dry. With that said i might as well just wait it out before i add any legs to it.

The solar kiln looks pretty interesting, i might look into that for future projects.