ShafTed
Ultimate Member
I have had a few different version of the "cheap" chairs, including the one I have now. What I believe is happening is that the one factory in China where they make ALL of these chairs has a jig that is out of alignment. From looking at several examples, the holes punched in the front leg cross piece where the rivet goes is misaligned. This puts extra stress on the rivet, bending and ultimately breaking it. I once tried replacing a broken rivet with a machine screw and the same thing happened to it in very short order, for the same reason. FWIW, I have seen a Bass Pro chair (admittedly a while back) that was made of tubing half again larger in diameter than the cheap (or even not so cheap) chairs. The larger tubing results in MUCH greater strength, and it did look like the leg crossing junction was properly aligned.
