I bought 2 of these chairs and put them both together in one afternoon. I actually read the instructions first and kept seeing the word 'tighten' - 'be sure to tighten'... so I did - ARRGHHH - big mistake. Just hand tighten until your ready to move on to the next phase of construction; when you've put one phase together, THEN tighten everything down.- I have to add that the person who put these instructions and parts together (screws etc) is a GENIUS. (except for the tightening down part). The parts are actually packaged by the phase of construction - I didn't open a big bag and have 5 million screws fall out all over the place overwhelming me at the start. Instead, each phase of construction has its own bag of screws and stuff - and there really aren't very many. As you finish one phase, you open the next bag and just have those few parts to deal with. GENIUS, pure and simple.- And by the way, they are so comfy - one of them I did take some very fine sandpaper to smooth some rough edges, but that's all. I bought them for the back yard, but put them on the front porch. I'm out there every morning with my coffee and every evening with tea and crossword puzzles.- I think I need 2 more for the back yard.