brass buttons

as i mentioned in the last post, i made some wool slacks last week. and as we all know, slacks need buttons. and as you may remember from the manifesto of this blog, i couldn't just buy them. but wood buttons are so last year. so i went with brass:

for some reason, you can work brass like wood. weird. anyway, after drilling the holes (three, i have decided, is the standard for my buttons because why shouldn't it be?) i was able to cut the disks on the bandsaw (using the same pine board and screws mount as seen above) and round them out with the stationary disk sander (using my fingers and trying not to exfoliate them right off). i softened the edges with a fine bastard file and evened out the surface with some 400 grit paper.

in the end, a wildly inefficient and fun way to make a button.

more about the pants themselves later in the week.