Knafs

Knafs takes its name from what "knives" sounds like once it has been mispronounced as "knifes" and then said with a Southern accent. The company gives one more reason on its About page: the domain cost $12.99. Ben and Athena Petersen started Knafs in 2018 as a side business in their garage, and the Clearfield knife company that grew out of it still writes its copy that way.

The first thing Knafs sold was not a knife. It was a poster, on which Ben drew everything he had learned about pocket knives. The Petersens pulled money from savings for a business license and a fire extinguisher for the garage, then rolled all 1,000 posters by hand after their kids went to bed. By their own account, they wondered whether the tubes would decompose in the garage before anyone bought one.

Ben had learned knives on the job. He was studying broadcast journalism at BYU when Blade HQ hired him to make videos for $11 an hour on a three-month trial, which beat the $8.25 he earned at a classical radio station. He went on to co-host its YouTube show, Knife Banter. He later worked at CRKT. The WIUG mark on his designs, including knives sold under the WE and Civivi names, stands for his old video greeting, "What Iiiiiissss Up Guys."

Knafs stayed a side hustle for four years. Ben took it full time in May 2022, and in 2023 it moved out of the garage into a building in Clearfield with a storefront. The store lasted two years. In December 2025 Ben closed it to the public, writing that the company needed a shop employee's time for manufacturing and the space for other work, and that what he loved more than the store was employing 10 people.

That manufacturing is newer than the brand. The Lander folders that built Knafs list China as their country of origin. The Lander 2 names Kizer Knives as its maker, and the big Lander 7 came from the HB Plus factory in Yangjiang. The Lulu fixed blade, its first U.S.-made knife, is manufactured in Michigan. The Little Lulu is the first knife Knafs makes itself, milled and ground in its own shop after the company bought a CNC mill. The heat treat still happens in Idaho. Knafs says even that one falls short of the FTC's "Made in USA" standard, which it calls "tougher than a Montana winter."

The Lander 2 has what Knafs calls open source scales that swap fast. The company posts free CAD files for the Lander and Lulu series so owners can print their own. The warranty covers defects. It does not cover "loaning your knife to your neighbor Larry," and the policy explains why: "We all know Larry messes up tools."

There are still no outside investors, so Ben addresses his year-end report to customers, who put $294,000 into three Knafs Kickstarters in 2024. The Clearfield building, which the company calls Mission Control, no longer takes walk-ins. It does take postcards.