buttons

[turnerbob]

I have a request to turn some buttons from fine woods. Do any of you have any experience or suggestions on turning buttons?

 

[john lucas]

I've made exactly one. I was doing a demo on turning Tagua and since one of the early references was that buttons were made from it, I turned one. turn the front side and then part it off using the toe of the skew to do most of the work. that leaves very little to sand. Drilling the holes accurately was the hard part.

 

[odie]

Drilling the holes accurately was the hard part.

Couldn't the spindle index be used for that? I've never done it, but it seems like the index could help.......

otis of cologne

 

[rjones]

try looking at the spring 2006 AAW journal page 40 it has a small article on turning buttons. If you don't have one you can order one from AAW or maybe a local club member may have one that you could use.

 

[john lucas]

Odie I drilled 4 holes offcenter just like a 4 hole button and I guess you could have used an index wheel but you would have to mount a drill guide off center. I just eyeballed it and used a dremel by hand. If I was going to do a bunch of them I would rig up a jig to fit on my cross feed table and drill the holes on the drill press. Of course drilling by hand adds to the hand made look because each button will be slightly off.

 

[Frank F]

try looking at the spring 2006 AAW journal page 40 it has a small article on turning buttons. If you don't have one you can order one from AAW or maybe a local club member may have one that you could use.

Thanks for highlighting the button article, but it's on page 40 of the Winter 2006 AAW journal.

 

[dkulze]

I'm with John. The whole point of hand turning buttons is to leave that fabric store look behind. A tiny bit of variation is a cool thing. Just make a little marker jig or sit a machine made button on top as a drill guide. Very high speed is your friend (to keep from cracking the buttons) when drilling.

dk