Totally not helpful to you at all, but you really make my day with that description of the "arm flailing" action. I really needed a laugh today. =) Thank you!!!

I suggest taking all elements apart, applying glue to all wood on wood surfaces and reattaching making sure you use loctite on the fastener threads.

I'm with Garimi. Either knock it apart and put it back together with Titebond II, or get rid of the chairs. There's room in life for "fashion-over-function" furniture when said piece simply has no distinct use, but adds something to a room. But, if you're trying to use it and it's not safe - it belongs on the curb.

Why would you keep a chair you can't sit on? Sounds like a chair-fail to me. A chair you can't sit on isn't a chair; it's an objet d'art.

If rebuilding them doesn't quite do the job, you could put them in an unobtrusive corner and only drag them over when you need extra seating. (And only when you yourself sit on them, since you're prepared for the balancing act.)

This is a really scary accident waiting to happend and if it's someone you don't know too well, you may be served papers.
If the reconstruction doesn't work...I would upcycle them and make something different out of them.
Good Luck.

My husbands grandmother who was a make do kind of person stabilized her chairs by drilling through the legs and inserting one of those long metal dowels with threads on it from front right leg to back left leg and reverse (makes a cross under the chair) and then you put a washer and nut on. Looks industrial but does the job.

I also have a vintage Cherner chair. The legs are fine but the small part of the back is fragile. I use the chair as a side table.

I'm surprised...I have some Cherner chairs and haven't had a problem. In fact, they are the sturdiest chairs I've ever had! They lived through several years at a housing co-op with like 10 kids running around between the houses and lots of people who broke several pieces of furniture. My chairs survived! Is it that the legs are loose, or are they actually buckling under weight?

Sugru on the feet to keep them from sliding much? May not be enough, but perhaps combined with some of the other solutions......

Can't you return them? I don't think I would trust a glue to fix this.
I don't adore the chairs but I do adore your rug and I think the rug is so beautiful that it deserves much nicer chairs. :-)

If you can't get the legs to work, you can use the seats and build a bench. Maybe with space in between for magazines/drinks?

@geckotoes1 REAL Cherner chairs are very stable. As you can see from the photos above these look like poor copies.

Wait, the problem is with the rigidity of the legs themselves, right? If that's the case, then, well, don't use these chairs, or leave them only for your under-100-lb children. :( Darn it. They look cool.

I take it they're vintage. Why WOULD you allow someone to sit on them? Especially when they weren't made for xx large sized America today. I have one Vintage Cherner side chair like yours; I consider it to be more of a three dimensional art piece than something to sit on. The neck and legs are not weak but it's off limits for sitting other than me; only to bend over and tie my shoes if needed. Once they break, what are you really going to have left? Set them where no one is likely to sit, put a coffee table book on each or something to kind of show it's in use.

sounds rough. maybe put different legs and make a frankenchair? use as a side table as someone suggested? I would hate to be an owner of a beautiful but unusable chair.

@rmbnn - are you really suggesting that everyone that sits in the chairs is XXL sized? That's kind of overreaching (pun intended) isn't it? I sat in a cheap, faux whisbone chair and almost broke it last week. I'm 107 lbs. Fat American, indeed!

OP, I would say this is style over function and if you can't get them to be stabilized, maybe replace them. It sounds hilarious and kind of dangerous at the same time. :)

Me too! Thanks for the flailing vision of your guests...once they think they've settled into such a lovely seat!

Two question. Did you know this before purchase and did you sit on them beforehand?

I would put one at the front door and one at the back door to set your things on when you enter. No worry of anybody being injured.

I have two vintage ones, authenticated, but with the leather tops, that also do squeek. They're not unsturdy, they just squeek a bit. We got the two screws in the back of the chairs tightened and that helped a lot actually. You don't wanna tighten it too much though as the wood will crack from what I understand.

This is the perfect example of why one should not buy a knock-off: poor visual imitation, but more importantly, awful quality. No chair should buckle like that, and the fact that these do is disrespectful to the original design. I'm not sure what is more embarrassing: the horrid look of the chairs, or the fact that you own chairs, for function, that you are afraid will break or injure those who might wish to sit in them.
...Why?

@rmbnn - Your comment makes no sense. Why do you assume the people sitting on them are obese? And if they are, so what? A chair shouldn't buckle under them. Not even the cheapest chairs do that.

I have a friend whose large but not obese guest leaned back a little too forcefully on his original Cherner chair, and the back broke off. The guest felt really bad, and of course my friend did not think it was any of his beloved chair's deficiency, but his friend's fault for making it break.

A perfect illustration of the need to furnish homes for function as well as form, and to beware of knock-offs.

Cut the back legs off and hang 'em high from two corners of the room as art.

not clear your insurance would cover this, either. this is a problem in a lot of mcm 'design.'

Not too many helpful comments here today.

Tightening screws and using glue are not going to help. You stated that the legs actually flex out from under the chair when they are sat in. The only way to stop the legs from moving is to connect them to one another so that the opposing forces balance. You need a rod of some sort and something to keep the rod attached - like the footrest rails on bar stools. Metal is probably best. Putting in these rails is going to significantly change the look of the chairs so you might want to do a mock up with cardboard or something on the chairs before you commit. If you don't like it, get rid of the chairs or re-purpose them.

And, personally, I would get these chairs checked out by someone other than whoever you bought them from. Well made mid-century furniture was made with quality wood and wouldn't flex like that. I think you might have been cheated.