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Blok Knives
Blok Knives lovingly design and craft handmade kitchen knives in the heart of Derbyshire, UK.
The company was started in 2012 by former web designer, Ben Edmonds, in the cellar at his home in the UK midlands. After watching a YouTube video of a young lad making a knife in his dad’s garage, Ben decided to try his hand at creating his own.
Spending many a late night trying to perfect his craft, it wasn’t long until he found himself surrounded by his new addiction. With Blok Knives featured in the Derbyshire Times, an order book formed and customers began to flock, appreciating the delicate accuracy and rugged stability of the product. This success and show of faith in his endeavor enabled Ben to dedicate more hours to focus on making his knives the best they could be.
Today, Blok Knives boast a team of four, making up to 25 knives a week in a heritage converted cotton mill in Darley Abbey Mills, shipping to clients the world over.
With a waiting list several months long, a small selection of these full tang, carbon steel knives are made available online each Friday on a strictly first come, first served basis. With this weekly sale becoming an important drawcard for the site, a countdown timer to each week’s sale is displayed front and center alongside beautiful imagery and video.
Sale items are scheduled to be published at the same time as the sale goes live on a Friday – the knives don’t stay available for very long though, usually selling out within minutes due to the high demand.
“As the knives are individually made, it’s important that whoever adds an available knife to their basket is able to complete the checkout process. To achieve this, the site uses a cart stock reducer extension to ensure that the stock levels are reduced as soon as somebody adds the knife to their basket, securing it for them for 10 minutes before being made available again [if they choose not to check out].”
– Will Hives, Alt Design
The site also sells tickets for special events featuring live music and street food (affectionately referred to as Blok-Ins), as well as merchandise bearing the Blok branding such as clothing and accessories.