How To Make A Puzzle Latch - Creative Latches

[JohnBarton]

The JB Cases Puzzle Latch.

Are you tired of fighting with hardware? Getting crappy hardware? Latches that break? - I was and so I developed a way to do latches myself that works. These latches have been field tested on actual customers for more than a year and they are holding up great so far. The premise here is to create a closure that is unlikely to ever break and which can support a lot of weight. I make cue cases and frequently the weight gets to be anywhere from 5-15lbs and people like to hold them by the lid with all the weight on the latch.

I have a few styles;

One is called the Puzzle Twist because it relies on a twist tab to secure it.

The other is called the Magnetic Puzzle because is has no moving parts and works with magnets.

Instead of a true how to with step-by-step instructions I will just show you examples that we have done.

The basic way to do it will be fairly self-explanatory but I will give you the gist of it here. Essentially the base of the latch is the male part and the flap has the female part. One part fits over the other like a puzzle. The base has to be riveted and sewn to the body of the case. The way we do it is typically we take two layers of leather and glue them up and rivet that to the body with a bit of sheet metal underneath. The sheet metal is drilled and glued in such a way that it cannot get loose and cannot touch the thread. Then we take the last layer and glue it to the top of the male part and sew all that together through the sheet metal with another thin layer of leather on the other side.

Give up yet? :-) Yes it's a lot of work to make a latch like this but the result is worth it.

The important part is to burnish all the edges until they are rock hard. We use super glue to harden the edges and make sure they won't fray. You want the male and female parts to fit together snugly but not so tight that you can't get the latch open. We use a dremel and a hand file to give both sides the right amount of bevel to make them easy to close and easy to open.

For the magnetic latches we use the neodymium (rare earth) type. We buy these in various sizes and pack them around the male and female parts for the cases because of the weight. We probably do it a little on the overkill side but I am a bit fanatical about the latches not coming apart with $10,000 pool cues in the cases.

Here is a video demonstration of the latch in action

So here are the pictures, if you have questions feel free to ask me;

Notice on this one that the male part has four layers. This is because this is a larger case and the weight is about 12lbs empty. So I wanted the male part to protrude slightly to give it just a little extra purchase.

Also here is a variation which we do for the pockets - we also call this a puzzle latch.

And another pocket variation:

Double sided magnetic Puzzle Latches with a flip top lid:

My favorite that we have done so far is this one:

So I hope that gives enough to go on to make your own Puzzle Latches. If you have questions then please ask them and I will respond in this thread.

[TinyL]

That is absolutely ingenious! Thank you so much for sharing such a fantastic concept and allowing us to try it ourselves.

Chris

[TheTrooper]

Hi John,

thanks a lot for this tutorial. I have to try that on my next case ;-)

Hope everything is OK with you and yours.

Cheers,

Marcel

[JohnBarton]

I wanted to mention as well that if the latch is not load bearing then you don't need to do the extra work on the backside to make it stronger. For a purse it would be enough to sew the male part to the body.

[amalafrida]

Goodness gracious, those are beautiful cases. And the latch is quite nice. I've spent quite a bit of time recently working on belt latches. I'd actually come up with something similar, but nowhere near as elegant. Thanks. Will work nicely for a "one-size" belt, which is just what I'm working on ... one-sizers.

[Duvall]

Fantastic work.... Give me a second to get my jaw off the floor.

[cre8vmynd]

Wow, very cool! I love the idea of a latch/closure that's not "off-the-shelf ". Thanks for sharing.

Casey