Hardware

Made here, sourced, or commissioned

Almost everything on a piece from this workshop is cut and sewn on the bench. Hardware is the exception: buttons, rivets and snaps are bought from suppliers who make them well, and set here with the right tools. That distinction is worth being plain about, and it will be marked on the project page: workshop-made for what is built here, sourced for a stock component, commissioned for a component made to the workshop's own design by someone else. Nothing is commissioned yet.

Buttons

Jeans and work jackets use tack buttons: a two-part metal button with a shank, set by pressing a tack through the cloth into the button body. They do not need a buttonhole thread shank, they do not come off with washing, and if one is damaged it can be cut out and a new one set.

The Standard Issue Jean uses a 17 mm tack button at the waistband and 14 mm buttons down the fly. Why a button fly rather than a zipper is its own entry: Button fly.

Rivets

A rivet is a two-part fastener set through the cloth at a point that gets pulled on — the corners of a pocket, the base of the fly. It spreads the strain across a metal disc instead of a few stitches. Copper rivets are the traditional choice on jeans and are used here.

Rivets are only part of the reinforcement story; bar tacks do the same job with thread, and each has its place. See Reinforcement and bar tacks.

Snaps

A snap is four parts — two for the socket, two for the stud — set through the cloth with a die that matches that exact snap. Western-style shirts use them. They are not on any project page yet; they belong to a shirt block that has not been drafted. The tool has been chosen, though: a bench-mounted press with interchangeable dies, because it sets rivets, jean buttons, eyelets and snaps with repeatable pressure and alignment, which handheld pliers do not.

How hardware wears

Brass and copper darken and dull with handling. A tack button's face shows scratches; a rivet's copper turns brown. Both are fine. Hardware that is set correctly does not loosen; one that is set badly works loose in weeks, which is why setting it with the right die matters more than the hardware's price.