Parker Fly hardtail bridge

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Marko Ursin
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Parker Fly hardtail bridge

Post by Marko Ursin »

I'm new to this forum so a little about myself:
I've been building basses for about 15 years. You can find my work under name MPU in Talkbass. Now I'm making a Parker Flyish guitar
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/winter ... r.1545407/
I have trouble understanding how the height adjustment works with Parker hardtail bridge. Under the bridge are three threaded holes, in the bridge cavity there's three threaded inserts. I just can't understand how you can adjust the height with any screw going to two threaded fixing points. Anyone have a pic of the screws or any info that helps? Thanks!
Marko
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vjmanzo
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Re: Parker Fly hardtail bridge

Post by vjmanzo »

Hi Marko—welcome!

The Fly hardtail bridge uses clamp screws (#10-32 R&L x 5/8), which we've linked in the Parts page. @marvin Jensen suggested this approach in the early Parker Guitars days, and Ken still uses clamp screws in the “floating neck joint” in his archtop work today! Effectively as you turn the clamp end one way, it turns the other end the other way.

When you turn the screws in the back of the body of a Fly with a hardtail bridge, you are effectively unscrewing the threads of the screw from one of the three anchor points in the bridge, so it's "left-y tight-y" when making adjustments to the bridge height—sort of in reverse from what you'd think!

Hope this helps! Good luck on your project—keep us posted!
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Patzag
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Re: Parker Fly hardtail bridge

Post by Patzag »

Please everyone, go over to Talkbass and checkout this project.
Absolutely amazing!
Marko Ursin
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Re: Parker Fly hardtail bridge

Post by Marko Ursin »

Now I get it, the clamp screws have both left and right handed threads on the ends.
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vjmanzo
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Re: Parker Fly hardtail bridge

Post by vjmanzo »

Yes! And, @Ken Parker claims that, oddly, the company’s catalog at one point had two SKUs for the same clamp: one labeled L & R and one labeled R & L! :lol:
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Laughinglarry
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Re: Parker Fly hardtail bridge

Post by Laughinglarry »

Patzag wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 1:01 pm Please everyone, go over to Talkbass and checkout this project.
Absolutely amazing!
OMG! Thanks for pointing me there. That's AMAZING!

Marko, you've made an incredibly impressive guitar. If you don't win the winter build-off, there's no justice...
Owner since '98, ADDICT since '08
That would be a SWARM...
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Nefarius
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Re: Parker Fly hardtail bridge

Post by Nefarius »

@Marko Ursin's work looks like the closest thing to a Fly I've seen since official production stopped.
Utterly impressive! :shock:

Greetings...
Nef
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ahmadimran
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Re: Parker Fly hardtail bridge

Post by ahmadimran »

Patzag wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 1:01 pm Please everyone, go over to Talkbass and checkout this project.
Absolutely amazing!
Can't believe I just saw this. What a phenomenal build, that finish is so beautiful.

@Marko Ursin if you don't mind me asking, how long did you take to build it from start to finish?
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