Name this guitar

Axe_meister

There was a guitar that was fairly revolutionary in the 90s. Made of carbon fibre but with a wooden neck. Offset and square upper horn and a piezo bridge.
Can't for the life of me remember what it was.

racefaceec90

parker fly?

Axe_meister

Thank you. That was it.

Musicwolf

I think that it was actually the other way around.  Body was wood and neck, actually I think just the fretboard, that was carbon fibre?  I could be wrong.

I didn't own a proper Fly with the square horn but I did own a Dragonfly (I think that they got re-named at some point),  This was definitely a wooden body and it was the lightest, most comfortable, solidbody that I've ever picked up.  When you wore it on the strap it was like putting on a pair of comfortable slippers.  Neck was on the skinny side.

Sounded completely bland and the piezzo was useless.

This is the Fly

And the Dragonfly (mine was this colour - Rootbeer)

SteveF

I believe there were options with wooden body but I think the higher end ones were all composite.  I could be wrong though.  A friend had one (I’m sure she still does, can’t imagine her getting rid as it was her pride and joy) and I’m sure hers wasn’t wood at all.

Edit - a bit of googling and it looks like I was indeed wrong.  It had a composite exoskeleton around the neck and back but the bodies were different wood depending on the model.   Interestingly, and I had forgotten, the frets had no tangs and were just glued onto the neck. 

grungebob

@Musicwolf I really Like the look of that dragonfly and that colour. 

Musicwolf

@grungebob

Yes, I loved the shape of the Dragonfly but I hated the Fly.  I was nver too happy with the colour but I also played a sunburst one in the shop and, despite loving sunburst, that didn't really work for me either.

Part of me wishes that I'd kept it (for the feel) but the sound wasn't working for me and it wasn't the easiest guitar to mod due to the space constraints in the body (really thin guitar and very contoured).  I traded it but encountered the guy who subsequently bought it on the Parker forum.  He took it to a Tech for setup and managed to coax a better sound from the stock pickups through careful adjustment.  The piezzo was just a waste of space.

meltedbuzzbox

SteveF said:

I believe there were options with wooden body but I think the higher end ones were all composite.  I could be wrong though.  A friend had one (I’m sure she still does, can’t imagine her getting rid as it was her pride and joy) and I’m sure hers wasn’t wood at all.

Edit - a bit of googling and it looks like I was indeed wrong.  It had a composite exoskeleton around the neck and back but the bodies were different wood depending on the model.   Interestingly, and I had forgotten, the frets had no tangs and were just glued onto the neck. 

Parker guitars went through several different owners and saw changes to production during each step.

The originals were wood with a carbon fiber exo skeleton. All the proper flys (deluxe, mojo, classic etc) were all made that way. The bodies were super thin and made of wood, poplar and basswood were usually preferred but there are models made from mahogany, the carbon wrap gave them strength. Enough strength for Ken parker to stand on them when they were resting across two chairs (and he is a big fella). 
The carbon fibre made the necks that stiff and straight that the very first models didn't have a truss rod as it wasn't needed. 
Consumer pressure meant these were later added to the models.
Electrics were connected with ribbons to save weight. Compound fretboard and some other cool stuff. The board is carbon fibre, a very thin strip with glued on stainless steel frets. The metal used on the frets is a specially make up too. The claim was that they would never perish.

Models like the nite fly were wooden bodied with a bolt on carbon wrapped neck.

If you look on YouTube there is a brilliant video of the factory and how the guitars are made.

Ken Parker was often quoted as saying they were selling 5 grand guitars for 2 grand.

Wonderful guitars if you can get passed the looks.

WezV

I thought the originals were a quartersawn spruce body, wrapped with CF.

I remember them begrudgingly doing  a mahogany one for one of their artists.

althy

Had 2 of the original flies in early 2000s. I loved their design and weight. After Ken Parker withdrawn to build archtops they made the dragon fly and pm which looked gross to me. 
Super reliable instruments, mine never needed a single setup in 4 years.

ICBM

I really wanted to like the original Fly based on the concepts when I read about it before it was launched, but I absolutely hated the reality - one of the most needlessly ugly, uncomfortable and bad-sounding guitars I can think of. That ‘hook’ in the body made it painful to play, the pickups sounded awful and couldn’t be easily replaced, the piezo was even worse, and it even had an extra bit of pointless design stupidity - you can’t put it on a hanger stand.

The Dragonfly was basically the Fly with the design faults fixed, but it still didn’t sound good. I’d really lost interest by then anyway.