i am peter kozy and my maker's mark is pjkozy.  but... when i was 10 years old and made my first knife, they just called me pete.  i don't know what it was that made knives so interesting to me at 10.  maybe it was because i got my first knife when i was 7 and loved to whittle.

     at 10 and facinated with knives, and learning to work with tools from my dad and my grandpa,  it was a natural.  i could do this.  i took a 2 inch finshing nail, pounded it flat with a hammer on my grandpa's vise.  my uncle taught me how to wrap the handle with string and hidden knots.  really cool.

     i made many more knives in my formative years, some of wood, some of nails, and i guess i tried all kinds of ways to make a knife.  always great fun... i just wasn't that good at it.  however, i was never very far from my store bought barlow.

     fast forward to when i was 35 years old.  now i either carried a 3 bladed case knife or the yaghtsman's knife that was issued to me in the navy.  i began to think of my earlier days of making knives and thought it would be fun to try making a knife that really worked.  i had done a lot of reading in blade magazine about the whys and wherefores of design.  the guy who made the best sense was bob loveless.  i designed a knife based on his theory and it really looked swell on paper.  good on paper but a bear in the execution.  it took me quite a few hours to make that knife, almost 40 hours just to put a finish on that blade.  it was a drop point hunter with a full tang and cherry handle slabs held on by brass pins.  what i learned was having the right tools probably makes a difference in the end product. i had finally begun my knifemaking in earnest.

     well... i have a lot of tools now and everytime i got a new one the quality of my knives improved.  i've tried many different designs and sold quite a few.  my trials have been distilled into the products i show on my "knife models" page.  i have been making knives for 39 years now.  i've loved every minute of it and plan to keep making them as long as my hands still work and my heart still beats. 

     i put a little of myself in every knife i make and literally feel like i am sending myself off attached to every knife i ship. if you take the same pride in owning one of my knives as i did in making it, you will be proud to someday pass it down to your son or your daughter as a treasured gift.  in a way you are helping me be remembered long after i am gone.

and they still just call me. .........pete