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"Bog" Chairs
This set of plans was commissioned by Mistress Rosemounde of Mercia, Thor's
Mountain, Meridies, for use in her "Spiffing Up Your Campsite" class
for Pennsic 2001.
This style of chair is not medieval, as far as I have been able to
determine. My own efforts have been able to reverse-document it all the
way back to a to a Boy Scout jamboree back in the 1950's. I've also been
told that this style of chair can be documented as a US Civil War dentist's
chair. For all of that,
the Bog chair, sometimes mistakenly called an "X" chair, is an SCA
staple. You see it everywhere. It's simple to make, inexpensive, and almost
indestructible. (I once used one to portage a Viking longship.
Honest. For verification, send email to THL Solveig of Thor's Mountain.
solveig-at-utk.edu She was a witness.) I've
made probably a dozen of these over the years. There are many variations
on the basic design, and I may add some more plans in here later.
- The Bog Chair Mark I - This is the
simplest design. This chair can be built with only a crosscut
saw, hammer, and chisel. (An electric drill will take much of
the work out of cutting the mortise for the spoon, though.)
- The Bog Chair Mark II - This design is
slightly more advanced, and calls for a coping saw in addition to the
other tools. (The normites among us can use a bandsaw or sabersaw
instead of a coping saw.)
- The Bog Chair Mark III - This is the
final, and most advanced design of the Bog Chair. This chair calls
for a router, table saw, rabbet plane, or other method of cutting a
rabbet. (A rabbet is a cut-away portion along the edge of a board.)
- Bonus: Two
pictures of a Bog Chair Mark III
Some suggested variations:
- If you have access to a thicknessing planer or thicknessing sander, you
can plane the board down to 1 1/4" rather than 1 & 1/2"
thick. This will make the bog chair much lighter and easier to carry
without reducing the strength beyond usefulness. This will also have
the effect of reducing the needed height of the slot in the back.
Because the "spoon" is thinner, the slot needs to be
correspondingly thinner. I've had good luck with a slot 1/8"
wider than the spoon is thick.
- Cut the back shorter. The 4' 6" back depicted is great for
leaning back and looking at the stars with a cold one, after a long, hard
day on the battlefield trying to get arrows equipped with bulky
anti-penetration-devices to reach the vicinity of, let alone accurately hit
opponents. But it also adds a lot of weight. You can
reduce the hauling weight of the bog chair by about 30% by shortening the
back.
- Cut a half-circle out of the bottom of the
back. This creates legs, providing three resting points instead of
two. Over all, the chair will be much more stable.
- Make the chair out of hardwood. Hardwoods are much stronger than
pine, and as a result, can be milled much thinner than pine. This will
give you a lighter, stronger, and much more expensive chair. You can
probably get away with as little as 3/4" thick wood, although I tend
more toward 1" thick.
- Cut a recess in the bottom of the seat and mount a concealed bottle
opener.
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