Who to repair my frame?

My Gios has a holed seat tube. I could get it filled by a engineering workshop for peanuts. and sprayed by a custom car outfit I know.
The other option is someone like Argos, but the cost of posting the bike, stripping, masking, new decals, re badged and respray is about £265+
Is this going to be the going rate everywhere, or do I have some options?

Vaz... Cheap as chips, occasionally shoddy workmanship...

Vaz and Ted James of 14's.

Thanks for the Vaz pointer. Although he isn't doing serious repairs the paint and decals are a very good price.

His brother does the repairs... He can fix anything...

Tho' I heard his brother wasn't very well before xmas... Hmmm... Get well soon, Vaz's bro...

mailed 14bike cheers.

I'm liking this site, even if it does make me feel like a friggin pensioner.

I'm probably older than you are... ;]

You don't look it BTW........and don't think I'm grooming you coz I said that!

If it helps I was racing retro bikes when they were state of the art.

Paul at Kiwi cycles replaced mate of mines Condor downtube, very nicely! Did take a long time though!

........and don't think I'm grooming you coz I said that!

Oh, it's that kind of forum?

paul at kiwi is a good guy and clearly a v. good mechanic but he can take a while to get stuff done. that said - he does stuff (like replacing downtubes and rerouting cables inside toptube very neatly) that most places wouldnt touch

Kiwi contacted as well, thanks again.

What about Brucey on here, he's been offering his mechanical skills at discounted prices:

http://www.lfgss.com/thread36603.html

http://feathercycles.blogspot.com/

Tho' I heard his brother wasn't very well before xmas... Hmmm... Get well soon, Vaz's bro...

I also heard he was ill, he can fix anything, his name is winston. He is acctually one of the main framebuilders at Roberts!

http://www.robertscycles.com/ in Croydon

From the bottom of their pricelist it says: Frame Resprays,repairs and renovations on any steel tubed frame ,please call or drop in for a qoute.

+1 for Roberts for repairs, and again for Argos too. Spraying is Argos is good too.

I too raced the steel machines of the day- I did stack one badly and it was my favourite too, I'm still sad from 1971! It was cold pulled back into shape, but had a small ripple in the top tube to give away it'd been stuffed.

Nowadays it'd be skip for you my dharlink, and move on.

I also raced on lovely steel.. perhaps we need an old fart's subsection????

My ancient machines mostly bounced when crashed, so they are still rideable, my ancient body, not so bouncy....

His brother does the repairs... He can fix anything...

Don't go to Vaz for repair, he ruined my Carlton 531c when removing the braze ons (cracked down tube a few months later). Charged me for repair when I gave him benefit of the doubt, then down tube cracked at the head tube lug where he put the new tube in a month later. I went to see him about it and he just told me to f*ck off! I've ended up paying for 2 finishes and a repair and all I've got is a broken frame.