the Fly Clone Project

I'm just mainly curious, I prefer the lightweight guitars myself but I know not all Parkers were under 5 lbs. Which ones were the heaviest?

The Fly Concert is the lightest Fly, but has no magnetic pickups. The Fly Hardtail (a.k.a. Fly Stealth) is the lightest Fly with mags, and then it’s pretty close among the Fly Artist, Fly Deluxe, and the Fly Classic. The Fly Supreme/Fly Maple Custom may be among the heavier Flys right up there with the Fly Mojo, which, in my experience, is the heaviest Fly.

These weights do vary from one piece of wood to another including the thickness of the body in post-Ken era Flys. The knobs and other hardware are also factors that add to the weight of these instruments.

I'd wager that, the closer the production date is to 2015, the more likely the Fly is to weigh in excess of 6 lbs. By 2011, most of the design philosophy and intent that had made a Fly a Fly had been discarded in the name of cutting corners (e.g., thicker bodies, standard truss rods, metal knobs, widely varying weight tolerances in wood blanks used, etc.). And that's without getting into all the "fix it until it's broke" brainstorms that led to pickup rings, bottom-of-the-barrel electronics being shipped out the door in a $4,000 guitar in a non-working state, giving up on the conical fingerboards when they couldn't get it right anymore and forgetting to realign the nut slot/tuner spacing to compensate the difference, ebony fingerboards with softer fret material, and the bottom seemingly falling out of the QC department once production was further downsized to "built to order" (what with all the negative NGD threads I recall seeing in the final year or two as guitars were pushed out the door in unsellable states exhibiting CF laminating errors, massive paint runs, unfinished filler jobs, etc.).

It’s also worth noting that, from 2003 onward, the recreational use of weight gainers was on the rise—not just in professional sports, but also in professional guitars. Sure, a performance-enhanced guitar sounds great, but at what cost?!

My 2005 Mojo was great. It was heavier than my Deluxe but still a great guitar at that time.
Now I have a Deluxe Hard tail that's under 5lbs and a Classic that's about 5.5 and feels "heavy"!

Interesting stuff, thanks guys. Yeah the Classic seems like it was the lightest one that I've played so far, but I've never owned an Artist or Stealth. Anyone know about how Niteflys have changed in this regard over the years? I just ask because a Nitefly is going to be my next purchase, hah.

What Nitefly are you looking for?

Patzag wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 6:08 pm What Nitefly are you looking for?

I'm mainly looking for one that has the thickest neck possible. And also a bridge humbucker as well hopefully, but that's not as important.

ubik55 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 10:57 pm

Patzag wrote: ↑Tue Nov 01, 2022 6:08 pm What Nitefly are you looking for?

I'm mainly looking for one that has the thickest neck possible. And also a bridge humbucker as well hopefully, but that's not as important.

Ah. I didn't know there were different sizes of necks on these guitars.
I can measure mine. Where do you like measurements taken to determine neck fatness? 1st fret? 12th?

Patzag wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:44 am I didn't know there were different sizes of necks on these guitars.

There are, for sure, some NiteFlys and Flys out there that were made with two stacked fingerboards (each composite fingerboard is 30 thousands of an inch thick). That added thickness gives some Flys and NiteFlys a chunkier neck than others. A fingerboard was usually only added when something went wrong during production—instead of trying to remove a fingerboard once it was epoxied down to the wood, another fingerboard was added on top.

Fun fact: the NiteFly Ken made for Reeves Gabrels has three .30” fingerboards layered on top of eachother so it’s .60” thicker than a typical NiteFly.

Patzag wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:44 am Ah. I didn't know there were different sizes of necks on these guitars.
I can measure mine. Where do you like measurements taken to determine neck fatness? 1st fret? 12th?

Oh could you? That'd be cool since finding measurements online have been hard to come by. Could you measure around the 1st fret? That's the area where I'm most curious typically. Millimeters or inches is fine, either way. Chicago Music Exchange is a great resource for anyone into researching neck thickness measurements for various guitar brands. Here's one Nitefly they measured:
https://www.chicagomusicexchange.com/pr ... 97-1246808

vjmanzo wrote: ↑Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:57 am There are, for sure, some NiteFlys and Flys out there that were made with two stacked fingerboards (each composite fingerboard is 30 thousands of an inch thick). That added thickness gives some Flys and NiteFlys a chunkier neck than others. A fingerboard was usually only added when something went wrong during production—instead of trying to remove a fingerboard once it was epoxied down to the wood, another fingerboard was added on top.

Fun fact: the NiteFly Ken made for Reeves Gabrels has three .30” fingerboards layered on top of eachother so it’s .60” thicker than a typical NiteFly.

Okay yeah this makes sense as I've seen other people's Nitefly neck measurements that were different than what the link I posted above listed. Good info!