A former wages clerk for J & F Pool Ltd in Hayle, Eustace returned to work after a long illness to find that he had been replaced. At the age of fifty-nine, necessity forced him to turn a hobby into a livelihood and he became a full-time copper craftsman. Born in Market Street, Hayle, he had married Elizabeth there in 1900.  They had thirteen children, nine of whom survived into adulthood. Though he had no copper work experience, he was aware of Poole's Cornish Hand-Wrought Copper products, and also familiar with the work of the Newlyn copper art industry.

In a 1938 News Chronicle article, 'Craftsmen of the West' profile, he states "I have seen the craft die out locally and I am trying, in a small way, to do something to revive it". From taking up the craft in 1935, Charles Eustace successfully made a significant quantity and variety of hand-beaten copper articles, and it became the major contribution to his income after that time. He also developed the making of cane-ware baskets and trays. He was again self-taught, and they sold "like hot cakes" - though they did not offer the artistic satisfaction that copper work had.

When Eustace began copper making, John Drew MacKENZIE's original designs for the Newlyn Industrial Class were still being used alongside new and original designs at Newlyn. J & F Pool's products had been based on the fashionable Art Nouveau styles of the early twentieth century. Eustace produced his own interpretation of these designs, and in addition produced many others that were distinctly his own; as his work was influenced by past copper making in Hayle, it often has a similarity to - and can be confused with - earlier examples of Hayle copper.