Interesting!

We once had a cheap old fiddle an Aunt tried to learn on once - but the bow had been lost. When I investigated putting it back into playable condition, I quickly learned that a decent bow would cost much more than the blooming fiddle was worth! I promptly gave it away and kept working on my 5-string banjo, which I have been trying to learn for the past 35 years now, with marginal results.

Out of 6 bows, I'm hoping that most of them will be worth something, as this friend is not wealthy by any means and still has student loans to pay off. Since only 2 will be needed (assuming that both violins are to be played at once) that leaves 4 which may possibly come into play in subsidising the restoration of the instruments. I expect that most if not all of those will need repair as well - at least re-hairing.

Would you reccomend any particular type of string, or should we leave that up to the Restorator? Are pegs pretty much universal, or do they have to be turned for individual instruments?

I have an old wooden peg-turning tool in my shop - it's in pretty rough shape, but it looks like an enlarged pencil-sharpener; remember the little ones we used to take to school that were about an inch long with a little blade mounted in a plastic block? This one is wood, and about 4" long.