Do not despair!
All is not lost.
First of all,can you discover what the glue is?
If you can and it is a water soluble glue, try wetting the feet of the bridge with a paint brush to soften the glue.
If it is superglue, you may be able to soften the glue with something made to dissolve super glue.
In my case, I had no idea what the glue was as we did not glue it ...................
DD bought a Violin from a friend, he was only asking £10, so having learned to play when she was younger, she jumped at the chance of having her own.
When we were helping her move last week, she indicated that she didn't want the Violin because the pegs kept undoing.
Instead of throwing it away as she requested, we brought it home.
Looking at the instrument it was plain it had seen better days.
The fret part(no idea of the correct term) was painted at intervals with either white nail varnish or white-out ( tippex), to indicate finger positions.
The pegs were thick with resin and some sort of glue.
The bridge was glued on and there was a big drip of glue that had run as well, beside it.
Plan of action
1.Find stuff that dissolves glue of various kinds and try in a little place where it isn't drastic in case it melts the varnish.
I tried
- Water
- white spirit
- Acetone
- Penetrating oil (like WD40)
I used a paint brush to apply and kitchen paper towel to remove.
- The white spirit did nothing either bad or good
- The Acetone removed the White marks on the fret board without melting or spoiling it.
- The penetrating oil did make the glue look more pronounced but nothing more.
2. Find a thin sharp object to get under the bridge and ease it a bit.
I used a razor blade.
It was one of those flat conventional blades which luckily the men have gone back to using so we had some handy.
A stanley blade might have worked but is thicker so may not have.
The blade was snapped in half length ways so I didnt cut myself too much and I very slowly and carefully worked it back and forth under each bridge foot in a sawing motion.
Success!
The bridge came away.
It left a little of itself behind and in one or two places it took a bit of varnish with it.
There was a lot of glue left behind.
3. Remove as much of the excess wood as possible.
This was all done using the blade.
It took a good long while but caution was needed.
4. Remove excess glue.
The penetrating oil worked best.
It didn't soften the glue at all but it lifted the edge slightly and the blade was very lightly rubbed over it ,which got rid of a goodly amount of glue in little shards (it looked like super glue at this point but as the acetate hadn't touched it, I don't think it was.
5. cover up the evidence.
The cleaned violin had a few bits of bare wood showing so I used a floor touch up pen that we bought in a set from poundland for doing scratch repairs on laminate floors.
The palest pen was chosen and I carefully dotted the colour on ,waiting and redoing as each bit dried.
On the fret board there was a scratch which was covered up with a Black Sharpie pen (thin black marker).
It actually looks better in the flesh as the darkness outside of each speckled area is not really quite as dark as it looks in the photo.
The new bridge will sit here and cover much of it .
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It still needs a new bridge as the old one was shaved off and the feet are not really very well shaped anymore. Also it has a gory blood finger print courtesy of me.
We need to clean the holes where the pegs go in.
I have cleaned them a bit but two holes feel like they have been gunked with glue and will need a bit more work to clear.
I cleaned the pegs in hot water and they are fine once the old gunk is gone.
We might be able to roughen the pegs a little to help them to stay put.
DH will most likely restring it as he is the strings man (he plays Mandolin and Guitar).
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