I love the Conoid chair. Its a great design and it looks great. When I show this picture to customers, they always look carefully and ask: who made this one??
Question: Does anybody have a lead on the plans for this chair??
Send word if you have a lead. Love to make one. I have the walnut and I have made over 1000 spindles for windsors so I think it is do-able.
thanks
Dan
Edited 11/17/2007 7:14 pm ET by danmart
Replies
this looks like a good reproduction to me, but not a faithful one. the foot detail looks inauthentic.
the winterthur museum in delaware might have a few originals, and possibly plans for sale. try googlin them.
Expert since 10 am.
dan ,
Sounds like you are plenty experienced , you should be able to scale the piece even from a photo .
The only plan you need is the one you make .
Design the joinery and complexity around you and your shops capabilities .
been building furniture a good while and have never used an outsourced plan
dusty , I never design a piece I can't build
See link
http://www.nakashimawoodworker.com/chair.htm
Maybe you could Email and ask if any plans are available.
However I tend to agree with oldusty. ... you should be able to scale the piece even from a photo' and your capabilities .
I have never made a chair like that but I would make a simple mock-up
using some pine or other inexpensive wood. Not for the details of the chair but to find a safe balance point for the size of chair intended.
Don't get hung up on a plan.. Make the mock-up and HAVE FUN!
Dan,
Before you build the chair, talk to the wood. Listen to the wood. Do what it says. Let the wood determine what you do with it. You are merely the pawn who is to do the will of the wood.
Once you understand these things, you are truly a woodworker. :-)
Mel
Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
"Listen to the wood. Do what it says."
My wood screams when I get near it with cutting tools. Is it trying to tell me something?
-Steve
No plans, but dimension in mm. Hopefully that and the picture will be enough.
Legs. 865 ( that includes 18mm tennon) x 65 x 30
Leg spacing from outside edges 420
Seat Width - 450 at front slightly tapering to 460 at widest point which is at the front of the leg, then tappers back to 5mm at the back of leg.
Depth is 440.
Thickness of seat is tapered laminations 50 at the rear to 20 at the front.
Height of seat at the leg is 525 at the "top" of seat and that is parralel to the leg "not" straight up from the ground.
Height of seat at the front is 510 "directly" from the ground.
Top curved rail is 40 wide and 18 thick with 20 overhang each side.
Leg taper starts at the back 40 up from the seat and ends before the 18 tennon giving a witdth of 30 x 30
Feet. 495 x 65 x 23 with a slight curve in the base so it has four even surfaces to sit on.
Dimensions of George's Chair
Jigs-n-fixtures,
I'm drawing plans by scaleing a photo and getting some dimensions different than yours.
Total height you 865mm me 1066mm
Base lenght you 495mm me 570
Most of the other are close enough.
would like to exchange info with you. I just joined so I can't message you yet.
I'm doing this as a personal project and will not be building to sell or as business
Thanks
Elvin
Dan, I think that I have read that George Nakashima's daughter is carring on his business, and if they still produce those chairs. Shouldn't you ask them for permission to make and sell a copy of it?
deleted as edit. Bye
Edited 2/10/2008 8:33 pm ET by danmart
Dan,
Your original post mentioned showing the photograph to customers. True, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are selling furniture, or this chair. I mean, I guess it's possible that you are a carpet or used car salesman, and you keep a pic of a Nakashima chair in your wallet, which you whip out and show to customers as part of your shtick.
;)
-Andy
< When I show this picture to customers, they always look carefully and ask: who made this one??>
Sorry, if I didn't understand, but it sounded like you were trying to sell this chair with your opening statement to me.Also the 1000 spindle part makes it sound like you are in the business of making chairs. If you just like making chairs and giving them away, that is fine. I think that is a nice gift idea.However, as for myself. If I had a customer who wanted me to make a copy of that chair or anything else which is as obviously a signature piece, I would suggest to them that they buy form the designer, however if they would like for me to make enough changes that I could feel that I had used this chair as a starting point, or inspiration, I would have no problem with this.If you have never read "The Soul of a Tree", I would suggest that you do before you make one of these chairs. Perhaps you will find that either the tree will guide you as Mel suggested, or maybe you can just channel George, and find a way to make it your own. Ha
Shouldn't you ask them for permission to make and sell a copy of it?
Why should he? When Chrysler came out with the minivan, I'm sure Ford and GM didn't send them a nice letter, asking if they could copy the design. Capitalism is dog-eat-dog, and you don't need your competitors' permission to compete with them.
Unless he's passing it off as a "Nakashima original", or the chair has a design patent on it, it's fair game.
Barry
You're wrong.
When Ford and GM made their versions of the minivan, it didn't look like a Dodge Caravan or Plymouth Voyager. They couldn't do that, because of patents.
No woodworker can keep another from making chairs, or tables, or any other furniture, for that matter. But, when someone has a design copyrighted, as Nakashima, Moser, and many, many others have, it is ILLEGAL to copy it without permission.
When specific measurements and dimensions are mentioned, it certainly gets one about 3/4's of the way down the road to copyright infringement.
Some of us actually do this woodworking thing for a living, and don't wish to see others taking advantage of our design idea's, and selling them to their customers. About 3 years ago, I posted pictures of a furniture piece I designed and built here on the Knots. About a year later, I saw a darn near perfect copy of it in the Gallery on the Woodweb. I actually asked the guy where he got the design from, and he stated that he copied it from a picture he got from "the Knots". The part that pi$$ed me off was that he sold the piece to his customer.
I've designed a few new pieces since then that I sell to my customers, but I am now smart enough to not post anything on the internet anymore.
It just isn't right.
Jeff
Jeff,You said that you were upset that someone sold a copy of a chair that you posted a photo of on Knots. Chances are that that sale didn't take any bread off of your table. That guy's customer would probably never have looked for you. So who was hurt by this? If you lost a sale because someone else sold a copy of your design then I can see where that would be upsetting to you. MelPS please understand that I am not a professional woodworker and that probably colors my thinking.Measure your output in smiles per board foot.
Mel
Most of the time, I agree with you. You're missing the point completely on this one. Copying one's work, and selling it as your own, is against the law here in the US. Enforcing it is a completely different animal, but you'll have a hard time finding any craftsperson in ANY line of work who thinks this is ok, whether it be art, pottery, metalworking, woodworking, etc.....
Who owns the patents on the 40,000,000 plus parts on a space shuttle? Does Northrup get a little pissed off when, say, Haliburton copies their brand spankin' new state of the art laser gizmo blaster thingee. I think the answer is "yes!"
The point is, if you, or anybody else, wants to build a copy of a Jeff Miller chair for your own use in your own home, nobody, including Jeff, gives a hoot. However, if you want to sell 10 of them to a customer, that's just wrong. Design your own, don't copy mine.
That's my point.
Jeff
PS I think maybe you feel the way you do because you ARE NOT doing this for a living. Perhaps your point of view would be different if you did.
Edited 11/21/2007 7:00 pm ET by JeffHeath
Jeff,
No argument.
Thanks for the response.
MelMeasure your output in smiles per board foot.
Jeff,
Unfortunately I'm sure these things happen all the time. I at least would have to think that it would be common courtesy to at least ask first. If you held a patent on the piece, then all bets are off - definitely should not be copied by anyone without a release from you. Fighting it in court I would think would be a waste of your time.
Next time, just whack him over the head with your hockey stick! :-)
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Jeff,
i agree with you on this.
If somebody reads a book on " shaker" furniture-----gets inspired and starts building in that style----- fair enough.
If somebody reads Nakashima's book---and starts building coffee tables with live edges--fair enough
but directly copying the conoid chair-without permission----doesn't seem cool in my book.
stephen
I'm not the least bit wrong.
Furniture designs are not copyrightable. Not in the U.S., anyway. No "designs" are copyrightable, with the exceptions of architectural works and semiconductor maskworks (thanks soley to politically powerful lobbies). Look in the Copyright Act; there's no catagory applicable to furniture.
Certain ornamental aspects of a piece of furniture may be copyrightable; e.g., a logo or a similar distinctive decorative element. And the plans for a piece of furniture are copyrightable. Which prevents someone from duplicating the plans themselves. But the design of the furniture itself? Nope.
Furniture designs are subject to a Design Patent; e.g., Moser and some others have design patents on some products and they cannot be copied without permission. And one general rule to keep in mind is that under U.S. IPR law, if something is patentable, it's not copyrightable, and vice versa.
I can't find any design patents in the USPTO database for furniture attributed to and inventor named "Nakashima".
It may have "pissed you off", but unless you got a design patent on that particular piece, or the seller tried to pass it off as a "JeffHeath original", it was fair game, and perfectly legal.
If you want to protect your designs, you need to file a design patent application. It's easier and cheaper and a Utility Patent. But you still need to file the application; it's not like copyright, where the work acquires copyright as soon as it is "affixed to a tangible medium".
Unfortunately this seems to be a common misconception among woodworkers. You hear cases of someone showing their design to a big company without an NDA, and then seeing the same thing on the market six months later. Or the guy that is all upset because someone took his dust collector "design" and is selling copies. That's just the way capitalism works.
I think some of it is that woodworkers have told themselves one too many times that they are "artists" instead of craftsmen, and have let it get to their head. They like to think of their work as sculpture, but it you read the definition of scuptural work in the law, it's pretty clear something with utilitarian purpose as furniture doesn't apply. Further confirmation of this is the fact that it furniture is eligible for a design patent.
Remember those Razor scooters that were so hot a few years ago? It only took weeks for near-identical copies of that "design" to appear, except for the (trademarked) Razor logo. Perfectly legal. That's just the way things are. If you want to stay ahead of your competitors, you need to keep innovating constantly.
Edited 11/22/2007 4:17 am by BarryO
Edited 11/22/2007 4:18 am by BarryO
Hi Dan,
Congrats on the backlog -- if you enjoy the work, it must be nice to know that it is in demand. I meant to put an "emoticon" in my post, but I guess that it got lost in the shuffle.
-Andy
A piece of furniture can be copyrighted or patented. If an item is made and sold, it is copyrighted by the original maker. This can be difficult to prove in court, however.
If you copy someone's work to make money, it is theft, plain and simple. It is no different than the thieves in China pirating software or dvd's. Making plans of someone's work to sell to the public is pathetic and lazy.
Conoid Chair
Hi
I made a Nakasima conoid chair a number of years ago. I phoned the company for plans and Nakashima's daughter who now runs the company said they did not give out the plans as they are still in business selling the chairs.
I had a friend in Doylestown go to the museum there where they have a number of conoid chairs and measure the angle of the back of the chair. I had been at the museum earlier and had done all the other measurments.
I did not do the blind joint where the seat meets the uprights, it was way above my woodworking skills. I left the joint open which did not look bad at all.
Good luck
Dick
Conoid Chair
Hi
I made a Nakasima conoid chair a number of years ago. I phoned the company for plans and Nakashima's daughter who now runs the company said they did not give out the plans as they are still in business selling the chairs.
I had a friend in Doylestown go to the museum there where they have a number of conoid chairs and measure the angle of the back of the chair. I had been at the museum earlier and had done all the other measurments.
I did not do the blind joint where the seat meets the uprights, it was way above my woodworking skills. I left the joint open which did not look bad at all.
Good luck
Dick
Conoid Chair 8 years later
I wrote a message about customers of mine that looked at an album of chair ideas in my shop. I make/made windsor chairs at the time. The spindles I make in large numbers for classes and chairs I sell are the same as the oak spindles used in the Conoid chair design.
The wall nut pieces in the chair air not complicated to make. Seeing an original Nakashima chair after 10 plus years, I think it is a unique design but it doesn't go the distance in my view. If I were going to use the chair periodically in a dining room setting it might be worth making a few. The chair design is not as strong as a traditionally built windsor bowback.
I wished I was more clear to the readers when I posted a customer's comment while visiting my shop when they saw the picture. It started a debate on copying another man's work and never came back to the conoid design.
I left FWW after Knots took on another identity. Don't care to revisit the verbal volleyball game but Knots used to be fun and easy and it just got..... different.
Best of luck in your woodwork
Dan
Conoid Chair 8 years later
I wrote a message about customers of mine that looked at an album of chair ideas in my shop. I make/made windsor chairs at the time. The spindles I make in large numbers for classes and chairs I sell are the same as the oak spindles used in the Conoid chair design.
The walnut pieces in the chair air not complicated to make. Seeing an original Nakashima chair after 10 plus years, I think it is a unique design but it doesn't go the distance in my view. If I were going to use the chair periodically in a dining room setting it might be worth making a few. The chair design is not as strong as a traditionally built windsor bowback.
I wished I was more clear to the readers when I posted a customer's comment while visiting my shop when they saw the picture. It started a debate on copying another man's work and never came back to the conoid design.
I left FWW after Knots took on another identity. Don't care to revisit the verbal volleyball game but Knots used to be fun and easy and it just got..... different.
Best of luck in your woodwork
Dan
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled