Ferrum & Hide

ferrum and Hide work bench with buckles awaiting preperation

Belt buckle creation

The shape of our belt buckle and spring clip has been created using a combination of high precision machining and hand craftsmanship. It is this amalgamation of technology and traditional production that gives the correct balance of uniformity and the subtle nuanced individuality that a hand finished product requires.

Machining belt buckle blanks

 To produce the component parts for our belt buckle and clip we use engineers and CNC machines normally employed in the British aerospace industry. Each part is machined from a solid steel billet specially selected for it’s properties. A sophisticated 5 axis milling machine precisely removes excess steel in a time consuming process that requires each part to be machined multiple times

Shaping & polishing The belt buckle

Our craftsman finish the belt buckle and clip by hand. Firstly ensuring any marks from the machining process are removed, next carefully filing the detailed beveled edges, after that creating gentle sweeps and fitting the bar to the buckle.Finally the parts are polished with increasingly finer  grades of paper until our desired finish is achieved.

Making the spring clip

To make the clip into a spring it is filed to fit the buckles bar.
Once the fit is correct the clip is hardened to set its position by heating and quenching it. At this stage the clip is very brittle and must be tempered by reheating to make it into a spring. The clip is now ready to be  tested.  If too greater force is required to pull the clip onto the bar the clip must be thinned and the process repeated.