the Fly Clone Project

Have a look at this Parker Fly on eBay https://www.ebay.com/itm/174625143607?_ ... %7Ciid%3A1
I've seen it listed for quite a while & noticed the trem sitting forward & I think the place were the spring attaches is been put back in the wrong place
Good photos BTW of the wiring which I needed
Look at the photo from the rear of the rusty spring & notice how it appears screwed up
In fact that photo of the rusty spring made me take Rust Preventative Gun Oil to my newly acquired 9 spring
I think the tremolo need to be removed totally & the plate the spring rest against needs to be closer to the stop with the screws away at the other end
It looks wonky to me & I also notice the D G & B strings are wound backwards on the tuners making them not be straight in line as they should be

Wanted to tell the seller but thought I'd ask here first

So What do you Parker Fly Gurus think??
Gary/FR

I think it’s just the angle of the photo—the vibrato arm is likely still in the guitar, but is compressed because the guitar is flipped; that’s causing the bridge to appear leaning back. Then, the step-stop is flipped up in floating mode, so the gap looks larger than it is.

It probably doesn’t have the right gauge of strings on it for that spring (or the spring is failing), which is why it’s leaning forward in the top-down photo. Seems to be stabilized if the seller is saying it’s playable.

The bridge-post leaning issue is/was not common, but obviously there are some poor Flys out there with the issue; the issue arose as a result of kludge/salvage at the factory during production, so it’s hard to say if that’s what we’re seeing here. I think it’s just the photos and, perhaps, some poor maintenance.

This isn’t my guitar, so I have no way of knowing for sure, but I think it’s okay.

+1 To VJ’s thoughts.

That Classic has been listed for the same firm price on Reverb since Flys in better condition were being listed and sold for at least $500 less (I know because my bid at the time citing that was rejected). The spring and saddle(s) likely requiring replacement should result in it being priced lower, even with the current trend of buyers seemingly paying $2.5-5.5k for Flys solely on the basis of paint color.

That said, I would still buy that Fly (for the right price) without fear of the bridge angle displayed in some of those photos - Until it’s on my workbench, all I see it needing from this vantage is a proper relative string/spring tension being dialed in.

I've been watching FLYs for a couple years on eBay & Reverb since this Deluxe came in my possession..
It has been up for a while..
I will note that the trem stop is pushed way down were it is blocking the trem from returning to zero..
And the spring is tightened further than normal, It is also rusty & about to fail..
Just something I noticed while looking at Flies..
It is not assembled backwards as I first thought, Had to go look at mine..