Need help drilling thimble holes for bridge..

[Amber]

I have a jag body which has been drilled to fit another bridge. I've plugged the holes and need to redrill them for thimbles. Problem is I can't use my pickguard as that's been slightly drilled out to accommodate the new bridge.

How do I find where to drill properly?

Also, anyone know what drill size I'd need? Are the Japanese and vintage thimbles a different size?

[zhivago]

I am currently using MIJ thimbles in my '61, becaue my normal vintage thimbles are severely stuck on my other Jazzmaster body, so they fit.

the way to find were to drill, as far as I know is by placing a guard on....just buy an AV reissue Jag guard and use that.

as as far as drill sizes go, I have no idea, as I've never had to drill a body in the past

[Gooner]

Just a suggestion.... When you have decided which bridge you're going to use, wrap a bit of tape around the posts and fit the thimbles snug to the posts. position the bridge on the body using the original post holes as a rough guide and join the tail peice and neck slot edges in pencil for alignment .You should be able to mark where the thimble holes need to be drilled. I can't get to my guitar till tomorrow evening so I can't take any measurements now and I wouldn't want to cock it up by providing inaccurate measurements so I would be tempted to go through the fender website(US) and see if they can give you something more precise.

John

[mezcalhead]

I have a body here, patiently awaiting further work.

The centre of the thimbles are 24mm back from the bridge side of the bridge pup rout, or 160mm back from the centre of the neck heel rout. For side to side, I would just match the centre of the bridge with the centre line of the guitar.

Once you have thimbles, you should be able to see what size drill bit you need. AFAIK there is no difference in size between various thimble types.