Wood’s Cutlery is Expanding

 By Muriel Nelson

Wood’s Cutlery is one of 32 tenants at the Clear Lake Area Community Center, Inc. (CLACC). Eric Wood, owner of Wood’s Cutlery, started his knife-making business at his home in 2015. He needed more space for his growing business, so he moved his equipment to CLACC and literally “set up shop” in a second-floor suite in February 2021. Eric and his associate, Lisa, continued to grow Wood’s Cutlery to the point of needing more space for additional equipment and their large inventory of supplies.

They recently moved again within the CLACC building, this time to Room B4 on the ground floor.  That’s right! The former boiler room is now their workshop where Eric makes, repairs and sharpens knives in his workshop.  Eric indicated it was a challenging move to relocate their workshop to the lower level. They have several pieces of heavy equipment used for making custom knives. They also have an impressive inventory of over 50 kinds of wood and animal horns, material for one-of-a-kind knife handles. Not to be forgotten are the many types of metal for the blades. Eric and Lisa have made significant progress towards settling into their new space.

You may recall that there were boilers in Room B4 until September 2024. The boilers were installed when the building was built. They were “vintage 1922” and were no longer operational. CLACC initiated a major asbestos abatement project a year ago that included removing the old boilers and all asbestos-containing materials from that room. New concrete flooring was then installed along with better lighting. Thanks to these changes, Wood’s Cutlery now has a space more suitable for the type of work that they do.

Once they acquired a suitable workshop in Room B4, Eric and Lisa decided to move the sales portion of their business to a storefront in the St. Croix Falls Area. The new storefront resides at S1942, St. Croix Falls, WI. That location is on the south side of U.S. Hwy 8 just west of the interchange with U.S. Hwy 35.

They plan to not only sell knives there but also provide knife-sharpening services.  It appears that this will be a busy retail spot since the knife business is now coupled with their second-hand store sales.  In addition, there is a rocks and agates business in the same storefront that is owned and operated by Laurie, their new business partner.

Wood’s Cutlery had its Grant Opening on Monday, September 15. Currently, store hours are 10-6 Monday through Friday with plans to add Saturday hours sometime in October. For more information contact the store at 715-523-9039 or the workshop at 715-607-4406.