My Dad likes five things: his family, pizza, concrete, Corvettes, and making stuff in his workshop, probably in that order, though concrete could leap frog pizza on any given day (like the day of pure hobby synergy when he poured the 6 foot deep (!) concrete foundation for his new granite and brick pizza oven). His love of Corvettes is really fun to watch because I get to see the enthusiast bug at work in someone else. When the C8 was released we traveled about an hour away to go see one in person at a release event. On the way there, I asked my Dad if he wants one, seeing as he has a C7 already. To my surprise he told me: “No.” Without hestitation or reservation, it was a flat no. The word among the Corvette enthusiasts, what with their New Balance sneakers and cellphone belt holsters, was that the first model year of a new Corvette is never the model to buy. Instead, you wait for the second year, once they have worked out all the bugs.
The Flytanium Arcade is my second Shark Lock knife, and like the second model year of a new generation of Corvette, they seemed to have worked out all the bugs. Here, the lock, instead of being a weird add on, is a star performer on an otherwise interesting knife. While my AD 20.5 was good, it wasn’t I knife I would buy other than to try out the lock. The Arcade stands out as a knife I would buy regardless of the lock. And therein lies the difference between the two knives. Let’s get into it.
Here is the product page. There have been two generations of Arcades, one with three or four inlays and a silver frame and the second with a blue ano or gunmetal gray frame. This is obviously a second generation Arcade. Here is a video review. Even though this knife is over a year old, I don’t think there are any written reviews. Notably, this is me circling around and reviewing knives I missed when they were released (the Protech Malibu, and Luft Avant, are on this list too). Here is my review sample (paid for with my own money):
The Demko Shark Lock is pretty stout. If I understand the story correctly, the idea came to Andrew at Church, and he had to run out after and sketch it out on a scrap of paper.
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