Where to I get folding chair hardware?

[Tom Hammond]

I have a double-seat folding chair that I would like to reproduce and make as a single as well. The woodworking won't be a problem. What IS a problem is the lack of information I have on buying hardware for making folding chairs. For example, the chair has rivets instead of bolts and nuts that allow the folding action. It looks like they were slid through the hole and then the end was smashed with a hammer to spread the end out. Where do I find hardware such as that? I've looked all over and done all kinds of internet searches. I'm not even sure if there's a particular term I should be searching on. Any help is GREATLY APPRECIATED.

[Jamie Buxton]

You can buy rivets from McMaster-Carr. However, you don't have to exactly reproduce the production-line construction choices. Rivets were probably chosen because they were a little less expensive than a bolt-and-nut. That doesn't mean they're structurally better than a bolt. You can build a solid chair with substitute parts you can easily acquire.

In place of the rivet, I'd use a bolt. I'd choose one that is not threaded in the area where it will bear on the wood. That is, the threads should only be at the end of the bolt where the nut will be. I'd use an aircraft nut. They're sometimes called self-locking nuts. They have a little plastic insert which prevents the nut from loosening.