Patent ID: 8112868

Claim:
A method for manufacturing chairs having reconfigurable backrest profiles, said method comprising the steps of: providing a chair frame having at least two rear legs, each rear leg having an upper end; affixing a mounting tab to each rear leg adjacent the upper end thereof, such that the mounting tabs are laterally spaced apart from one another a fixed distance; forming chair back blanks having a generally uniform thickness and being generally rigid so as to maintain compound curved contours adapted to conform to the backside of a human torso, the blank having a dimensional width and a dimensional height and an initial profile; establishing a pair of mounting surfaces on the blank, the mounting surfaces being laterally spaced apart from another a distance corresponding to the mounting tabs on the rear legs; receiving a customer request to manufacture a chair having a backrest profile that is different than the initial profile; reshaping the backrest profile without altering the compound curved contours and without altering the lateral spacing between the mounting surfaces; applying at least one surface treatment to the reshaped backrest; and fastening the reshaped backrest to the chair frame by mechanically connecting the mounting surfaces directly to respective mounting tabs.