Important Things NOT Covered in the Fly Manual (and a few that are!)

[vjmanzo]

This post is intended to be a growing list of not-so-obvious things related to the Fly that aren’t necessarily covered in the manual. Remember, first, to RTFM (Read The Fly Manual)! Please feel
Free to add other insights in the posts below!!

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• If you replace the strap pins, use the same length screws, so they don’t poke through the upper horn

• Before you swap your pickups, you can get very different tones just by adjusting the pickup height (see manual for instructions).

• The neck profile was designed to be very thin, but they are all a little different, and some Flys have chunkier necks than others (some as chunky as the NiteFly).

• On the original Fly, the battery compartment can be unscrewed with a dime.

• Clip the ends of your strings when changing strings instead of pulling the curved end of the strings through the tuner/bridge hole. The risk of damaging the tuner hole or bridge hole is not great, but it is possible, an you really don’t want to drag a mangled piece of string through that part of your Fly. When changing strings, just loosen the strings, clip it in two locations and pull a cleanly-cut section of string through the holes.


The truth is that the Fly was built to last and is pretty damn resilient! It’s not indestructible, however, so be sure to read the Fly manual. Here are some common trouble-spots addressed in the manual that may arise with Fly along with some solutions:

Preventative Issues Covered in the Manual That You Really Need to Know:

• Don’t use anything on the fretboard other than water...seriously: nothing! Not lemon oil, not Fast Fret, not grease, not coconut oil...nada...zip...nothing. The frets are chemically bonded to the composite fretboard and they will hold in place forever unless you do something to weaken the bond.

• Don’t expose your Fly to relative humidity levels outside 40% - 50% for extended periods of time; again: the frets and the composite fingerboard will not budge unless you give the chemical bond good reason to fall apart. If you can’t avoid poor humidity conditions, keep your Fly in its case when you’re not playing it and keep a D’Addario humidity pack in the case.

• Don’t over-tighten the vibrato wheel; if you need a crash course in setting up the vibrato bridge see this post.

• Don’t over-tighten the Sperzel locking tuners; you don’t need a special tool to tighten these...seriously. Just use your fingers to tighten and loosen them.

[mmmguitar]

How about this bombshell posted in the FB group:

Unfortunately, this compound radius never really was the case. We did extensive testing on that radius sanding tool and determined that no matter what you did setting the tool up, you ended up with a radius akin to 12" from nut to heel. There may have been a difference in a half inch of radius between the two. We followed this with careful measurement of the gluing cauls used to glue the fingerboard to the neck, and they were a flawless 12" radius at all positions. This told me no matter how you sanded the fingerboards before you glued a fingerboard on, it would end up a 12" radius once the epoxy filled the voids. If you have precision radius guages, measure your guitar. Once we saw we were spending ridiculous amounts of time to achieve a fraudulent result, we reset everything to a 12" radius in 2008.

[vjmanzo]

Yes, I saw that, @mmmguitar. We had the change to a fixed 14” radius around 2010/2011 listed on the Summary of Fly Changes post, but it was interesting to read @Terry Atkins’ comment.

I know that these are subtle things, and a completely gradual 10-13” conical form is rare, but I believe that the early Flys did have this. I’d like, respectfully, to measure my Flys from varying years to confirm if any of them from 2008 have a fixed 12” radius.

It is true that all Fly bridges had a 14” radius, so, since the spacing at the nut is different than the bridge, a conical radius (often called a compound radius) is the proper shape.

#NeckContour

[jb63]

I am clearly in all the wrong FB groups!