We shall now describe briefly some of the processes in button-making, beginning with metal buttons. Circular disks, called " blanks," are first cut out of sheet brass or other metal by means of fly-presses, usually worked by girls. The fly-press consists of a ver tical iron screw with a triple thread, to which screw is attached a horizontal arm, bend ing downwards at the end to form a handle. A punch attached to the press rises and falls with the motion of this handle, and rapidly cuts out the blanks. When large quantities of one pattern are required, a self-feeding, self-acting machine is used, which cuts out the blanks in rows at one blow, turning them out at the rate of 2000 gross per day. After being annealed, the blanks are next made convex by a blow fr6m a stamp. The shanks are formed of wire by a separate machine, which cuts off pieces, and bends them into loops of the required form. When these are soldered on, the buttons are dressed on a lathe. They are then gilded and burnished; some, however, are only lackered; and some, though gilt, are finished in a dead or frosted style.—" Shell" but tons are those with a convex face, a flat or convex back, and hollow. These are made of two blanks, that forming the face being larger than the back to which the shank is attached. These blanks are pressed into the required shape by dies worked in the fly press, and then, by another die, the edge of the larger blank is lapped over the smaller, and thus attached without soldering. Livery and other buttons having a device in strong relief are stamped by a die placed in a stamping-press. See STAMPING OF METALS.
In making covered buttons, a metal blank is punched, and its edge is turned up by a die in a fly-press; then a smaller metal blank is punched with a hole in the middle, and of such size, that, when flat, it shall fit into the upturned edge of the first; this per forated blank, or collet, is next pressed into a concave or dished shape. Two cloth blanks—the face one of silk, and the other for the tuft of thin canvas—are now punched, one considerably larger than the front metal blank, the other somewhat smaller; the larger cloth blank is laid upon the flat face of the metal blank, which is filled with a disk of mill-board or paper, and its edges turned over; these edges are covered by the smaller cloth, and then the collet laid upon them with its concavity towards the cloth.
They are now all pressed together in a sort of die or mold, by which means the collet is flattened and spread out, while the upturned edge of the metal blank is turned forci bly over it, thus securing the collet, and with it the cloth which is strained tightly on the face, and its edges bound between the blank and the collet, so that the whole is firmly held together. The linen-covered button for underclothing, above referred to, is formed of a single brass ring with a groove or canal on one face. Into this the edges of the two round linen blanks are placed, so that when the edges of the groove are pressed firmly down, the button is entirely covered with linen.
Buttons with holes, technically called " four-holes," " three-holes," and " two-holes," when of pearl-shell, wood, bone, or ivory, are cut with a tubular saw, turned separately in a lathe, and drilled. When of metal, the blanks are punched, then stamped in dies to the required form; the holes are punched, and " rymered," to round the sharp edges that would otherwise cut the thread.—Glass buttons are most largely made by taking it rod of glass of any color, softening the end by heat, and pressing it into a mold, each half of which is fixed to one limb of a pair of pincers. The shank is placed into a hole in the mold before the melted glass is inserted.
According to an estimate published a few years ago by Mr..J. P. Turner of Birming ham, to whose paper we have been much indebted, the number of artisans employed in the button manufactures of that city was then as follows: Total . 6000 Probably about 1000 more are employed in Loudon and elsewhere in Great Britain, and a large proportion of the whole are females. At that time, which was before the war with Germany, about 20,000 persons were employed in France, showing how much more largely the button industry has been developed in that country. Germany is a still greater producer, the cheaper kinds of fancy buttons made in the Rhenish provinces of Prussia, the glass buttons of Bohemia, and the pearl buttons of Vienna being more extensively exported than those of any other country. Buttons of various kinds are made on a large scale in the United States, but that country still imports them largely from Europe.