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I'm considering putting a tune-o-matic piezo bridge in my CIJ JM and this will mean replacing the bridge thimbles.  They are in a blind hole and have smooth internal sides, can anyone suggest a way of removing them that won't make a mess of the surrounding wood?

Thanks!

people have used a (hot) soldering iron and heated up the thimbles and then pulled them out when they loosen up

sookwinder wrote: people have used a (hot) soldering iron and heated up the thimbles and then pulled them out when they loosen up

+1

Once they're hot... gently grip them with pliers and rotate/pull.

It doesn't take very long... if you smell paint/wood burning, back off!

I use the soldering iron method too except I don't use plyers to grip the thimble.  A butter knife under the lip works for me.  I use blue painter's tape to put down around the outer edge of the thimble, 2 layers...then I use a 40 watt soldering iron.  Stick it in for about 5 seconds or so as Fullerplast said, then I rotate the iron around in the hole lightlyto rock it slightly, then I use a butter knife to slide under the lip of the thimble once its raised a little, and then I lift up the body and use the knife to guide the thimble out as the body is tilted down to allow the thimble to fall out onto a towel and not hit the body.

The thimble will be burning hot for a few minutes so don't touch it.  Also if the iron heats up the thimble too much, it will melt and bubble up the paint around the thimble, so when the thimble first starts to rock is when I knife it and carefully pry/guide it up.  I am careful not to dent the area around the thimble so that is why a few layers of blue painters tape helps and try not to use much fulcrum force (try to keep the butter knife flat and just lift it up.  The tape will protect the finish as long as you don't put too much pressure on it.

I've learned the hard way...burnt wood, bubbled paint, hot hand, scuffed thimble side using needle nose plyers to try to pull it up and slipped...etc.

top tips!  thanks a lot guys, i'm sure this will work.

Sorry for the thread necro BUT:

I just had to do exactly this. I used my Soldering iron to heat the thimbles for 20 seconds. I then inserted a Phillips head screwdriver that was just a little bit thinner than the thickness of the thimble hole. I cranked it to the side so that I could get leverage on the thimble and pulled up. I was able to pull it up enough so that I could get the butter knife underneath. After that, I put the iron back in the thimble and just continued to push up gently with the butter knife. Took about another 10 seconds on each of them but they came out nice and easy with no damage to the body or finish. And those guys were really in there! I remember having to hammer them in with a rubber mallet to get them to sit fully in the hole when I installed them in the first place.

Just wanted to share my experience in case anybody else is looking for the same advice and let people know that this method works!

A 6mm expansion bolt is probably the easiest way. Wrap once around with any tape can give it a little more grip (and protect the inside of the thimble if more force is needed .. but it often isn't). Eyelet on end is optional - regular expansion bolt works fine. You can probably do much the same thing with a screw and plastic wallplug/anchor for screwing into concrete walls. Basically anything that's designed to expand to grip what it's inserted into.

I have used the expansion bolt method many times with great success

Thanks all, I just got mine out with an expansion bolt and a slide hammer, didn't even need the soldering iron.