Boepple was an old-world craftsman who could never adapt to modern industrialization, and it ultimately proved to be his downfall. He always insisted on making buttons one at a time with a foot-pedal lathe. Weber, on the other hand, had different ideas and went to automation as quickly as he could. His firm was well underway when he died in 1934, and his son, Edward W. Weber took over. The younger Weber, with brothers who were superb machinists much like their uncles, was in charge of the company until 1963, when he died at the age of 57.
Edward W.’s contribution as a second generation owner was to introduce synthetics to the button industry. From clams that ultimately became too expensive to manufacture, he went into newly developed acrylics and, with his sons and brothers, adapted the original clamshell machinery to appropriately fit the new material. What didn’t adapt or couldn’t be made by Barry Manufacturing that created their original machines, they invented and built, themselves. Remarkably, in one form or another, the original pearl machinery lasted until 1985, with one of them currently residing in the Smithsonian Institution.
The only problem was that early acrylic buttons melted with heat. If they survived the finishing process, they then melted when a homemaker ironed a garment. Yet another source had to be found, which was up to third generation Edward Walter Weber to find.
At 74, it is he (otherwise known as “Ed” or “Buster”) who is currently in charge of Weber, and it is he who transitioned from acrylic buttons to polyester plastic, which is what is used today. Originally, the polyester pigment had a lead base. By the 1980s, however, lead was outlawed, and the trick became how to make a button without lead. “I can remember him bringing home buttons and putting them on a cookie sheet to bake them, or he would iron them to try them out. They smelled awful!” says daughter, Lynne.
There are two basic ways to make buttons, but Weber primarily uses one over the other due to too great a volume and too little for employees to do on the one, vs. constant production at a slower but steadier pace on the other. There are also two ways to dye a button, with one being through and through (colorfast), while the other is topical, in which case the color can fade onto lighter shades of fabrics. Interestingly, volume in part determines which way a customer has to go in the dyeing process, because colorfastness demands a minimum of 260 gross or 37,440 buttons.
Weber sells a great many buttons, and has huge diversity. It used to make its own metal buttons by using the plastic base and then electro-plating the outsides. Now, these buttons are outsourced, as well as those with rhinestones, cloth, and other combinations; in-house manufacturing itself is limited to the plastic material.
Lynne and her sister, Susan, will eventually take the helm, although Lynne insists that Buster is simply not retiring—Ever. Having worked his way up from the bottom, Buster has the entire business and all of its processes in his head. Even as Lynne was being interviewed, not a question went by without the echo of an answer from Buster in the background.
To make buttons, it takes about two weeks from the time an order is placed until the buttons come off a conveyer belt from inspection, and are placed into boxes. The buttons are made from a paste that is dyed to a specific color, a thick Karo Syrup-like goo or pigment, and plastic, all mixed in a 25 pound bucket. This is then poured into an open-ended sideways rolling solid drum that is much like a hamster wheel. The drum is spun centrifugally and the material inside is heated, hardened, then peeled off, put on a belt where it is cut into blanks, and dropped in hot water to solidify further. The pattern and holes follow, plus three days of tumbling with 3/8″ tiny wooden cubes to polish the material if a shiny finish is desired. Inspection follows on the conveyer belt, and it’s done. Presto! Hundreds of buttons.
“Weber is strictly wholesale. We don’t even have a website,” emphasizes Lynne. Do they have actual button cards and pictures of their buttons? Yes. For 105 years Weber & Sons has been a company deeply committed to customer satisfaction. It has no plans to change that arrangement.
