What to do with stuck violin pegs
A stuck violin peg can be an annoying pain to deal with. No one wants to be caught in this situation! The truth is that some people may be tempted to throw away the violin or take it to a professional to have it checked out. While that may be the best option, there are a number of things you can try with the pin to move and reset it yourself. While I don’t guarantee that any of these will work 100 percent of the time, they are safe and won’t damage the instrument as long as you’re careful.
The first thing to do is remove the string, if you can. If you’re desperate and neither the string nor the peg moves, remove the string and all other strings by untwisting or cutting them with pliers. This will relieve some of the stress on the peg and give you a lot more room to work with while you figure out how to remove the peg. The messiness of all the strings can create quite a bit of stress in regards to how to fix the stuck peg, as it gives you another piece of the puzzle to solve. Don’t let this happen to you.
Next, try taking a screwdriver or dull nail of some kind and pressing it against the inside of the dowel. You want to make sure you don’t scratch the peg or anything else around it as you do this. That may mean getting something with a rounded tip. Take a soft mallet to the opposite end and try to tap it against the opposite side of the screwdriver so that it pushes against the peg and pulls it out of the violin scroll. Be gentle! It should only take a few light taps with a rubber mallet or hammer and the pin should slide in and be able to move immediately.
The last thing you can try is to take lubricant and spray it along the inside of the peg to make it slide more easily. From here you can pull it out from the inside or you can take a cloth, wrap it around the plug and twist it. This will make the stuck pin slide out much easier and will help remove it quickly and without incident. Just be sure not to spray too much lubricant or else you may not be able to grip the violin peg.