the Fly Clone Project

What are the differences besides the bridges being different and the neck being black on the nitefly?

Also is a p44 pro the same as a fly minus the fancy carbon fiber and stuff? Knobs and pickups and all that seem to be the same.

Others will point out anything I missed. In order of manufacturing expense, from greatest to lowest:

The Fly series and later DF842 were the flagship guitars which had 24 frets and the thin body and neck joint afforded by the CF layer bonded to the rear of the body and neck. They also have a bonded CF layer for a fingerboard and the hardest stainless steel frets ever produced. They were intended to be the lightest weight guitars on the market, but weight tolerances in production steadily increased after Ken sold the company. The guitars’ thin body required custom pickups and a calibrated flat spring for the trem.

The original NiteFly was a 22 fret bolt-on version of the Fly neck with a thicker shape and attached to a thicker wood body with fewer carves and a pickguard so normal-sized pickups could be used. The Parker trem was simplified to use strat-style springs, and the step-stop mechanism was replaced with a simple set screw in the rear of the body. Later models sold as “NiteFly” by USM cut more and more features until it was essentially a P-series guitar, and the DF824 became the brand’s flagship 22 fret CF guitar (essentially a Fly with 22 frets and the DF series upper horn).

All other SKUs of Parker guitars are “normal” wood body, wood neck guitars with Fly, NiteFly, or DF-shaped bodies or headstocks. They all have softer nickel frets.

The P38 is a strat shaped like a NiteFly, with a Wilkinson trem and no CF. The P44 is the same guitar but with no pickguard and two pickup ring-mounted humbuckers for those who prefer that pickup configuration. The P44 Pro has a Les Paul style glued-in mahogany neck and the Parker trem, with direct-mounted pickups rather than rings. Its resemblance to a Fly is only superficial - They’re two different designs for the sake of hitting two different price points.

As implementation of Fishman (and later, Graphtech) components became cheaper over time, the under-the-hood electronics for Parkers produced from approximately 2003 to 2015 became more and more consistent between all models. Unfortunately, this was a cost-cutting measure that resulted in very low quality pots and switches being sold inside $4,000+ guitars.

mmmguitar wrote: ↑Wed Oct 19, 2022 4:53 pm Others will point out anything I missed.

Nailed it!

Thanks for the info! I appreciate it! I have two p38s and used to own a nitefly and was looking at getting another and noticed a lot of similarities.

What pots would you recommend me replacing my stock fly mojo ones with?

Ondoid wrote: ↑Wed Oct 19, 2022 11:17 pm What pots would you recommend me replacing my stock fly mojo ones with?

If your pots and switches are all working, then there's no hurry to replace anything. The owner in this thread bought C&K and Allied selector switches. I tend to use CTS 250k pots in my Flys, though the Bourns and Alpha pots I've used in the past also did their job for the right price. I really want an excuse to use MEC pots in a project after finding the ones that came in my Aristides to be of high quality, but they're $$$.