Harvesting dead tree fern

[daveh_sf]

I have a pretty large tree fern in my garden which recently died, and I'm interested in how to go about saving the trunk material for orchid mounts. Can I cut it down at any time, or should it "dry" first? How much of it can be used for mounts - just the center part, or further out towards the surface too? Any difference between the top part vs. the lower part of the trunk? The whole thing is about a foot in diameter and about 15 ft high.