Guitar Bridge Pin Broke

[Mandobart]

A friend of mine has an older (10 to 15 years) flat top 6 string acoustic guitar. Looked and sounded like it had the original strings. Thought I'd do him a favor by replacing them. Loosened up the strings carefully and equally. Gently tried to pull the low E pin out with just my thumb and finger and the head snapped off the pin! I felt terrible. We were at his house, in a tiny town that houses no music store (I got the strings from a music store over an hour away, before I broke the pin). Never ever had a this happen before!

I thought the best thing was to take it to a shop to change the strings since I'm not sure the best way to extract the broken off part of the pin (I couldn't get it to budge when pushing against it with a small wood block from the inside) and remove/replace the remaining ones without breaking them, too.

Have any of you repair guys seen this? Do the cheap plastic pins just age and get brittle? Do you use any kind of penetrant to loosen them up in cases like this? Thanks!

[Philstix]

Yes, plastic pins often get brittle with age and break. I would not use a penetrant. Try tapping on the bottom of the pin with something like the flat side of a crescent wrench. A sharp tap will often break loose something which massive pressure won't move. If that doesn't work drill through the pin with a bit that is slightly smaller than the pinhole and it will come out. I would replace the whole set. By the way I also live in Washington, in Woodinville northwest of Seattle. I assume you are somewhere on the east side of the mountains?

[Mandobart]

Yep I'm in the Tri-Cities. The guitar in question lives in the mid-west.

[Tavy]

You could just take all the strings off the tuners, shove your hand inside the guitar and push it out from the inside.

[Mandobart]

You could just take all the strings off the tuners, shove your hand inside the guitar and push it out from the inside.

Actually I couldn't. Not with my fingers or with a wood block, and my hands are used to wrenching on cars, motorbikes, boats, etc., as well as lots of masonry, carpentry and plumbing. The pegs are in there pretty tight. Not being my own instrument, I didn't want to see just how much force the soundboard could take from the inside.

[Fretbear]

It's not rocket science; what has to be done has to be done by you or by someone else. If you can't tap the pin out conventionally from the inside, then make a support block with a hole in it for the freed bridge pin to pass through to support the bridge and then tap it out with a small tack-hammer from the inside. Also make sure the string's ball-end is not jammed against the inside bridge-plate preventing the pin from getting free. If that won't work and you can't tap it out, then it has been glued into the bridge or something and then drilling becomes your last resort.

[Mandobart]

Thanks everyone for the replies. I am now back home in the NW; the guitar in question resides in the midwest, about 1600 or so miles away. There's nothing more I can do with it. I was looking for some info on what causes this, how it can be prevented, and how to deal with it when it rears its head again. Since both my guitars have the Ovation pin-less style bridge (superior design, IMHO), this doesn't come up too often for me.

[sunburst]

Assuming the string (and string ball) were still in place, you can grasp the string near the pin (working outside the guitar) with a pair of needle point pliers and push it down into the hole past the pin. Sometimes, when the ball is wedges into the hole and into the bridge pin you can push it free and the pin will then loosen. Trying to drive the pin out from inside the guitar with a string ball wedged in between the pin and the hole is impossible (or close to it) sometimes, so the string ball has to be out of there first. Also, sometimes when you try that, the wedged string ball will try to pull the pin down with it wedging it tighter in the hole. Then you have to push against the pin from inside as you push against the string from outside.
How to prevent this?
Make sure the pins are good quality (not squishy soft plastic) and that they fit the holes well. IT all works better if the pins are not fluted, but instead, the bridge holes are, so they are like "key holes" and the string balls rest on the bridge plate inside the guitar rather than trying to wedge themselves into the holes next to the bridge pins.