How to remove Jazzmaster bridge thimbles the easy way

Recently I’ve been putting together a Frankenstein Jazzmaster from a bunch of different parts. When it came to wiring up the ground to the bridge I found that I needed to replace the existing ground wire, and to do that I first needed to remove the Jazzmaster’s bridge thimbles. So here’s how I removed the Jazzmaster bridge thimbles the easy way.

First up find a bolt that’ll fit the thimble. I used an M8 size bolt which has a diameter of 8mm. The Jazzmaster thimble had an inside diameter of 8.3mm so the 8mm worked for me. You’ll also want to make sure the bolt is fairly long.

Next up, insert the bolt and start turning it. Be gentle. Once the bolt bottoms out (reaches the body of the guitar) gently keep turning. This will cause the thimble to start to pop out (as seen in the picture below).

If you’re nervous about the bolt putting the pressure on the body once it has bottomed out the other option is to use a spacer and a washer. A spacer can just be a plastic tube or something like that. You might also want to put a something under the spacer to not scratch the body.

Here’s a bad diagram of the basic idea for how it works.

I’ve also used this trick before when replacing a Tune-o-matic bridge on a Les Paul and it worked just as well.