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Whoa...outstanding. At first it seemed that there is sound hole behind that hood emblem. Mmm.... I can imagine a semi-hollow explorer, with such a sound hole placement and cover. One of those semihollow explorer thingies has been on my build plans for a long long time. Now you just got me inspired again. Thank you

That white sustaniac looks great in there

+1

Carbon/Kevlar weaving really has an edge over plain carbon on the looks department.

I wonder how the result would have been if the paint to Kevlar transition has been white sunburst

Couldn't find that particular video of the factory tour any more where they showed the method of gluing frets. Anyhow there's some shots of the current technology. Seems they have improved the jigs a bit.

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Owning 2 very early Parker Fly Deluxe guitars I can tell you they are not meant for refrets. The reason Parker glues the frets to the fretboard is that the carbonfiber fretboard is a structural component of the neck. If you saw .026 slots in it you ruin the whole point of it. Also Parker used a machine to place all the frets. Remember early Parkers (before evil Washburn took over) were designed to be built with basswood necks and poplar bodies... let me tell you about heartbreak and trussrod repair on a vintage Parker sometime.

JUntunen is right ... I would not bother gluing the frets since you do not have the appropriate machinery or adhesive.

RestorationAD, thats correct the fretboard is not slotted in order to preserve the integral structural strength of the so called "exoskeleton"

Actually Parker didn't use any sophisticated machinery for gluing frets. They just used a kind of mold or template made of silicon rubber where there were slots for fret positions. They put the frets into the mold/template slots, applied glue on the frets, placed fretboard over the template and fixed the whole thing with rubber bands. It looked pretty smart and easy way to glue the frets accurately. I try to find the video of the process.

As for removing tangs of ready made SS frets in order to produce the gluable frets, I am not so sure it can be easy and accurate. You cannot actually cut the tangs with cutting pliers - you need to grind the base of the frets really carefully and with tight tolerances. I think it will make more sense to use ordinary stainless wire and remove the excess by machining/grinding.

One thing I've always been curious about is how to deal with the seams... I'm really looking forward to more progress pics!

There should be no seams except where the neck curve and fretboard edges meets when you make fiber fretboard

Nice build. Long time lurker here too and I too have planned to build a Fly for some time. One of the things what has stopped me so far has been a carbon fretboard. As many actual Parker Flys I have tried ,the neck feels super comfortable and fast due to carbon covered fretboard. I know parker glues the special shaped stainless steel frets on fretboard, just haven't figured out where to get these kind of frets and what glue to use.

One question though about using carbon/Kevlar - does it have any advantages over plain carbon in the musical instruments?

Will follow your build eagerly.

It's one sleek design. Congrats