Julius wrote, in part:
made a couple of calls to local shops and am looking at
about £100,
> this seems a little steep to me and if it's going to cost
I'd like to
> make sure it's going to be a special job that will last so
> recommendations would be much appreciated.
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Julius, yer killin' us here on the other side of the pond. You can't get near a professional paint job by people who know what they're doing over here for less than about 500 bucks, or about 250 pounds. And, that's just one color, no candies, no chrome, with proper graphics.
I'm about to take delivery of a Carpenter road frame that Argos has had for awhile now...I assume they did their usual workmanlike job on it..I haven't seen pics yet...but the tab is gonna run over 300 pounds without shipping. That was for some chrome on the drops, a bit of repair, two candy colors, extensive pinstriping and graphics. Seems like a very fair price to me.
If you think about what's involved in doing a good job of repainting a bicycle frame with modern materials, even assuming economies of scale, I'm amazed it can be done for less than 500 pounds...anywhere. There's quite a bit of hand-labor involved, and in first-world countries, specialized hand-labor is very expensive, as it should be. You guys in the UK are very fortunate to have so many reasonably-priced painters there. If you can get a good job, with graphics, for 100 pounds..I'd go for it. That's DIRT cheap.
Charles Andrews
Los Angeles