Button It!

[Peat]

I have a woolen waistcoat/ gillette which I love. Really versatile piece of clothing. Warm and yet fairly compact. The only problem with it was that the original buttons were really small and would come undone frequently. I decided that making buttons out of scraps of wood I had lying around would be a nice little project. So I found a slice of holly wood about 2mm thick, cut across the grain and I cut a slither of seasoned apple with the grain, and set about it. When I have seen holly in the past it has been a close grained, and a fairly uniform cream colour. However the grain on this piece is very striking. So I have been using it, cross cut for a number of decorative applications. Holly is hard and dense so I am not too worried about the buttons breaking across the grain. Apple is not as strong and the grain wasn't so vivid so The pieces I used ran with the grain.

I drew out circles on the slices before putting them in the vice and cutting them out roughly with a coping saw. On pieces this small the holly is managable, but when cutting slices, carving it or working with anything much larger than this it is very laborious due to its hardness.

Once the rough circles were cut, it didn't take long to sand them to shape and polish the faces. After experimenting with oil treatment, I used danish oil for the apple buttons and left the holly untreated as, unusually the grain was most striking is it was. So here is the finished article.

Apple

Holly

I find making buttons and beads to be a good way of utilising pretty scrap bits of wood that would otherwise be chucked

 

[BorderReiver]

Nice idea and I like the waistcoat, is it home made?

I'd have thought that apple wood would be really tough as they use it as "teeth" in the cogs of wind mills.

 

[caliban]

I've tried that, worked a bit, but nothing like as good as yours. Nice result, and yes that is a nice waistcoat, it'd go well with a big meerschaum pipe.

 

[fred gordon]

Love the waistcoat, love the buttons. Did you buy it, or have it made in the UK?

 

[Peat]

Aye, it is one of my favourite items of clothing. I didn't actually buy it, make it or have it commisioned. I found it at the end of a festival. I felt very guilty, knowing what a loss it would have been to its owner, but by this point the site was the domain of the litter pickers, and it just would have been claimed by someone else. I wear it fairly frequently, reasoning that if the original owner spotted it, I would happily return it, with a nice new addition. Easy come easy go eh...

I wasn't aware of cogs using applewood teeth. I guess its a lot tougher than I thought.

Caliban, I think I'm a bit too young to pull off a meerschaum pipe, perhaps a church warden would be more appropriate at a push...
Cheers