A Leather Eyeglass Case
One seam, one fold, one pair of glasses, and a box that has to take the weight of everything else in the bag.
An eyeglass case is a small leather box with a single job, which is to keep a briefcase full of files, keys and a laptop charger from grinding a pair of lenses into frosted glass. Makers have been building them in leather for a long time. The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich holds an early-19th-century spectacles case in brown leather with gilt tooling, made in two parts, about 140 by 50 millimeters. The Science Museum Group has an English frogmouth spectacle case from somewhere between 1830 and 1900, leather and steel and velvet, 128 millimeters long and 16 thick. Same problem then as now. Glass breaks. Leather takes the hit.
Video: Making a Glasses Case with Elia DeLeòn, from Tandy Leather on YouTube.
What to buy before you cut
Thin vegetable-tanned leather, a little thread, and the patience to measure twice.
Most of the commercial patterns use light leather. Sailrite’s free glasses case project calls for 2 to 3 ounce leather, a soft chrome-tanned outer with natural vegetable-tanned panels, and a separate vegetable-tanned center strip. At the stiff end, the German retailer Manufactum sells a saddle-leather glasses case from the Troxler-Haus social therapeutic workshops in vegetable-tanned cowhide about 2.5 millimeters thick, stitched, with exposed and smoothed edges. Those two cover the honest range.
Bridle at briefcase weight is wrong for this. My opinion: it is too thick to turn a tight bottom corner and it makes a case that looks like a holster. On a hide, the shoulder is where my small parts come from, and a glasses case is a small part.
The list, for a hand-stitched hard case:
- Vegetable-tanned leather, roughly 2 to 3 ounces for a soft case or up to about 2.5 mm for a stiff one
- Paper or card for a mock-up, a steel rule, a marking pen or scratch awl
- A rotary cutter, a sharp knife or leather shears, and a cutting mat
- Double-sided leather tape or contact cement to hold the seam
- A pricking iron or diamond stitching chisel, a mallet and a poundo board
- Waxed thread and two harness needles
- A wooden block close to the shape of the folded glasses, if you plan to wet-form
- Edge tools: a beveler, sandpaper, a burnisher and gum tragacanth or edge paint
- A snap or magnetic clasp, only if you want one
Size it to the glasses, not to a pattern
Measure the folded glasses, then build a paper case and put them in it.
Patterns are a starting point and nothing more, because frames are not a standard size. Fold the glasses the way they will live in the case. Measure the length, the widest point across the lenses and the thickness at the hinges. Then cut a paper version, tape it up, slide the glasses in and take them out again ten times. If they catch at the mouth, the paper tells you before the leather does.
Wall thickness eats space. The Manufactum case shows how much: its listing gives 17 by 7 by 4.5 centimeters outside and 14.5 by 5.5 by 3 inside. That gap is leather, seam and stitching, and a thicker leather takes more of it. Allow for it on every side the seam runs.
On my own bags I work with a ruler and my eye more than a template, the way a sculptor works the clay he has in front of him. A glasses case is a good place to practice that, because the job is small and the paper mock-up does the arguing for you. Mark the stitch line, mark where the fold falls, and leave the extra at the edges until the seam is tested.
The Tandy Leather glasses case project with Elia DeLeòn works the same order: trace the pattern, cut, fit the hardware, tape the two pieces together, then mark and punch the joining line.
Hard case or soft: wet forming the shell
Wet leather takes the shape of the block. Dry leather keeps it.
A soft case is a sleeve. A hard case is a shell, and the way to get a shell out of vegetable-tanned leather is to wet it, stretch it around a block and let it dry there. Tandy’s forming guides are written for vegetable-tanned leather, which the beginner’s guide says holds its shape well when wet. The soft chrome-tanned outer on the Sailrite case is meant to stay soft.
Tandy’s guidance changes with the job, and it is worth reading both pages. Its article on casing and wet forming says to submerge the leather in room-temperature water for about 30 seconds to a minute, depending on thickness, until the surface goes back to its natural color and feels flexible but not soggy. Its beginner’s guide to wet forming prefers a spray bottle or sponge, and says to make sure the leather is “evenly moist, but not soaking wet.” Both agree on the next part: press the leather around the form, clamp it, and let it air dry completely, which can take hours or longer depending on thickness and the air in the room.
Stitch first or form first is the real question. My opinion: on a case this size, stitch the seam with the leather dry, then wet the whole case and work it over the block. The seam pulls in tight as it dries and the corners round over the block without the holes stretching out of line. Form a flat panel first and you are trying to stitch two curves to each other, which is like hanging a door on a bent frame.
The block should be a little larger than the folded glasses all around, so the case dries with room inside. Too tight and the glasses go in like a cork.
The seam
Hold it, mark it, punch it, then sew it so the side nobody sees is as clean as the face.
Tape or glue holds the two layers while you punch. The Tandy project uses Tanner’s Bond tape and marks the joining line 1/8 inch from the edge, with holes every 1/2 inch if you rivet, or a stitch line marked with a pricking iron if you sew. The rivet route is quicker. I would sew it.
I hand stitch everything that matters on a bag. The saddle stitch is two needles on one thread, and I sew in the air, the work held in my hands and not pressed against a plate, which is how a tight corner gets turned without the stitch wandering. The Art of Hand Stitching says what a good one has to look like: clean on both sides. On a glasses case the inside is the side nobody sees, and it is also the side the lenses rub against every day.
Punching through even light leather goes better with the holes pre-marked and the tool held square, which I wrote about at length for heavier work in punching stitch holes in thick bridle.
Two outside makers add a support piece where most people would not think of one. Sailrite’s case runs an optional vegetable-tanned strip down the center, riveted in place, and says it “absorbs the force of opening and closing the fastener.” The Manufactum case has a leather bar riveted into the bottom to cradle the glasses and steady the case when it is shut. Both are cheap to add, and both answer the same stress: a closure that gets snapped open and shut every working day.
Edges, lining and the closure
Burnish an unlined case. Paint or stitch-finish a lined one.
Edges on a small case get handled more than on almost anything else, because the mouth goes in and out of a pocket all day. On a single layer of vegetable-tanned leather I would bevel, sand and burnish, the way I set out in hand burnishing edges. Wet the edge, rub it, stop before it glazes.
Lining changes that. When a case has a suede or leather lining, I use a latex-based edge paint, since the paint also glues the layers together at the edge where a burnish would only polish two separate pieces. Suede lining is softer on lenses and feels better, and it also wants care, because a leaking pen or a spill marks it for good. A leather lining is a little more durable and wipes clean. For glasses, my opinion is that a soft lining is worth the trouble, as long as the pen lives somewhere else.
Closures are optional. A snug wet-formed case holds its glasses by friction and needs nothing. The Tandy project sets a magnetic bag clasp; Sailrite uses a 14 mm magnetic snap; the Manufactum case uses a brass snap. Whatever you set, set it before the seam is closed, while you can still reach the back of it.
Then condition it. My Leather Care page gives the method: conditioner on a clean cloth, rub briskly, let it sit, buff off the excess. Expect a little color transfer at first.
When the soft one wins
Sometimes a sleeve from scraps does the whole job.
Everything above builds a hard case, and the hard case is the one I would want. Here is where my own argument goes soft. Most glasses do not need armor at all, and what they need instead is a plain barrier between the lens and the keys.
BERNINA’s WeAllSew blog has a leather sunglass case tutorial by Teresa Behr that uses leather scraps, sews three sides on a machine, and finishes no edges at all, on the grounds that the leather edges will not fray. No forming, no burnishing, no hand stitching. It protects glasses in a drawer or a handbag about as well as anything I have described.
My opinion: the hard case earns its hours only when there is weight on top of it, a case riding in a briefcase under a stack of files or in a coat pocket that gets leaned on. Glass breaks under load, not under dust. For everything else, the soft sleeve is the honest answer, and it is the better first project.
I would still build the hard one. That is the stitcher talking, not the glasses.
Barge All Purpose Cement, Quart: A quart of solvent-based contact cement. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Weaver Leather Supply Diamond Leather Stitching Chisel Set: A set of 4 mm diamond stitching chisels for punching saddle-stitch holes. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
WUTA Rawhide Mallet: A rawhide-head mallet for striking chisels and punches. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Mandala Crafts 150D 0.8mm Black Flat Waxed Thread: A flat waxed polyester thread, 0.8 mm, in black, for hand sewing leather. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
John James Saddlers Harness Blunt Point Needles: A set of blunt-point harness needles, five sizes with five needles of each. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Fiskars 18 x 24 Inch Self-Healing Cutting Mat: A self-healing cutting mat, 18 by 24 inches. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Fiebing’s Gum Tragacanth, 4 oz: A 4 oz bottle of gum tragacanth, a burnishing aid for leather edges. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
Fiebing’s Edge Kote, 4 oz: A 4 oz edge coating for finishing leather edges. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
400 Sets Double Cap Leather Rivets, 9x10mm: A box of 400 double-cap rivet sets. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).
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Sources
- Royal Museums Greenwich, National Maritime Museum, “Spectacles case”: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-63212
- Science Museum Group, “Frogmouth spectacle case, leather and metal, English, 1830-1900”: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co151102/frogmouth-spectacle-case
- Sailrite, “DIY Leather Glasses Case”: https://www.sailrite.com/diy-leather-glasses-case
- Manufactum, “Glasses Case, Saddle Leather”: https://manufactum.com/glasses-case-saddle-leather-a68797
- Tandy Leather, “Project Idea: Glasses Case with Elia De Leon”: https://www.tandyleather.com/blogs/tandy-blog/project-idea-glasses-case-with-elia-de-leon
- Tandy Leather, “How to Case Leather for Tooling and Wet Forming”: https://tandyleather.com/blogs/tandy-blog/how-to-case-leather-for-tooling-and-wet-forming
- Tandy Leather Canada, “A Beginner’s Guide to Wet Forming Leather”: https://tandyleather.ca/blogs/tandy-blog/a-beginners-guide-to-wet-forming-leather
- WeAllSew (BERNINA), Teresa Behr, “Leather Sunglass Case Tutorial”: https://weallsew.com/leather-sunglass-case-tutorial/
- Marcellino NY, The Art of Hand Stitching: https://marcellinony.com/the-art-of-hand-stitching/
- Marcellino NY, Leather Care: https://marcellinony.com/leather-care/
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