Not that I have anything against the blades you can buy at K-Mart or WalMart. I've got a few that I really like in the bottom of my toolbox or out in the garage. On the other hand, with the blades and materials that I have on this site, you can make you own custom work of functional art, a hard working and beautiful workhorse that you will be proud to display and carry and one that  will be the envy of your friends.  This will be a knife  that can be passed down to your kids. 

A few words:

 I don't claim to be the world's best knifemaker, web designer, photographer or businessman. I do seem however, to possess a wide range of mediocre to  slightly above average  talents, all of which I get to demonstrate with this internet  endeavor. I hope that this little project is of service to you. 

When deciding what blades and materials to offer here, I decided to concentrate on quality. I didn't figure that there would be anyone out there that would want to put ten or fifteen  hours worth of work into a knife that would end up being worth twenty bucks. I have boxful of knife blanks in my backroom that I bought with the intention of reselling, but decided against it. I got a great price on them but a four dollar knife is always going to be a four dollar knife. The grinds were uneven and, although they had a nice mirror polish, the grade of steel used was only a step or two above that of a butter knife . The same goes for cast guards. I've been pretty disappointed in the quality of the  last few batches that came in. The  machined guards and bar stock I carry are far superior and considering that they only cost a buck or so more, it's kind of a no-brainer.

I think you'll find the pricing I charge  pretty competitive when comparing apples to apples. I'm not the only person selling knife blanks  but , as a rule of thumb, I do try to charge a little bit less than my competitors. You be the judge ( and let me know if you see anything where you think I'm more expensive than my competitors). . 

Many of the items that you need to complete a knife can be purchased at your local large home improvement store. Things like tools, oil finishes, sandpaper, etc can be purchased much more economically there than I could ever sell them for. I figure it'll be a few years before I can compete with the buying power of someone like Home Depot. This site will concentrate on those harder to find items unique to the knifemaking hobby. 

I'm always open to suggestion and if you know about or have hands on experience with a product that you think might be useful to your fellow knifemakers, by all means, let me know about it. The same goes for new knife blanks. I'm always looking at new products and hope to be constantly introducing new ones. Maybe we can even talk about a finders fee. 

I have also been grinding my own knife blades for about five years  too, but it looks like it's going to be a while before you see them here. I'm getting better but have a long way to go. The best knife I've ground to date is suitable for pulling weeds in the back yard. But every one I grind shows signs of gradual improvement.  I'll get there.

In regards to this site, I fully expect that it will always be under construction. There are a lot more tutorials I keep thinking about writing and are on the "to-do" list.  I'll keep adding them as time permits and  my goal is to have at least one new tutorial every month . Check back often. And if there is a subject you'd like me to address, please let me know. The email suggestion box is open twenty four hours a day.

Last, I've put a lot of time into the construction of this web site and all of the pictures.  I certainly don't mind if you copy anything for your own personal use, but I'd really rather not have you incorporating any of these into your own web site. To this end, I went to the extra trouble of watermarking all of my photos.  I hate lawyers as much as anyone else but if I find anyone using my photos for their own financial benefit, I'll have to let my lawyer out of his cage.  And you won't like him.

I hope you enjoy the NorthCoast Knives web site and are encouraged to try this very satisfying and rewarding hobby. 

Thank you for visiting my site and considering spending a few of your hard earned dollars here. 

            Pat Percival
            PJP2@NorthCoastKnives.com

Oh, by the way: I CAN  do some pretty neat Flash and .Gif animations, but I wanted this site to be simple and straightforward without a lot of gizmos to weigh it down. Count your blessings. I could have loaded this site down with stuff like this: