Ideas for renovating a Harry Quinn

So guys,
a mate of mine bought a Harry Quinn last year of ebay. He was a that point in his life when he decided that riding old terrible beaters was no longer acceptable and ask me for advice on buying a bike. We found a Harry Quinn, which admitedly, was in a terrible condition superficially but was sound and was full on nice components, most of them campag, nice copper-riveted b17, cinelli stem and handlebar. we bought it for 80 quid. i suggested he rides it a bit and if he likes it in the future we can renovate the frame and replace the few parts which were not matching although functional.

As you can see the frame is great, geometry is fantastic.
So the time for renovating it has finally come. We have stripped the bike from all components and the frame looks like this:

It has a small ding on the TT, but i this can be brass filled when it get repainted.
.
The idea was to send it to a good place to get it revamped. I was told the best place in the country is Argos but the prices were a bit steep so i looked at Mercian. On their website the prices they list are def cheaper than argos.
My friend wanted to get the frame repainted in black and add chrome to the rear triangle and potentially get a chrome fork (i know it would make it look identical to Tommassitos bike but he likes it like that).
I send Mercian a email asking for a quote (I asked for two options for chroming one being the whole triangle (2.1) and one being just the right chainstay (2.2)
This is what their replied:

Hello Phillippos
Thank you for your enquiry below is some costing for you

1. Black enamel £100.00
   2.1. remove chrome extra 20% for work required to prepare for new chrome . Up to bridges £180.00
   2.2 " " " " " " " " " " " " Rear dropouts and right hand chainstay £100.00
   
2. fill dent in top tube £14.00
   
3. Transfers £25.00 and fitting £25.00 the 531 transfer £10.00
   
4. Lug lining if required £35.00 ( we think gold would look nice )
   All the above prices are plus vat at current rate and parcel force for delivery £20.56 inc vat
   thank you
   Grant
   Mercian Cycles Limited
   7 Shardlow Road
   Alvaston
   Derby
   DE240JG
   
   

From this i assume that the VAT is NOT included in the above prices so its very steep. Whithout the chroming and if you add VAT to the above prices it would be more than 210 pounds just for the black enamel, ding repair and new transfer (presumably underneath a layer of clear-lacquer.
If you add to that the chroming then i think the price gets so high its almost worth it to just buy another frame.
What would you do? Armourtex then get the transfers from Lloyd (who has them at the moment). Btw how would you get clear-lacquer ontop of the transfers if you got the frame resprayed in Armourtex. Thomas (my friend) isnt very keen on getting the whole frame painted in black enamel withouth any chrome so we're a bit stuck on ideas. What do you think, what's your experience. I know some of you have used Vaz but it seems there are very mixed reactions.
I'll stop here, sorry for the massive post and size of pics.
phi

Try ColourTech and forget the chrome to keep the cost down.

Price will be around 100 pounds.

Do you think that colourtech will give the same quality as mercian or near-equal quality? Can they source the decals?
Ive read threads here that suggest that the quality is not always the best. It seems they put only 2-3 coats and condor frames apparently chip a lot. I know mercian wouldnt powdercoat it but my mercian still has the original paintjob from 1975 and is still near-perfect without a single chip.

What about Bob Jackson bikes? No idea if they will do a non BJ but the quality on the restoration they did for me was fantastic....

how much did you end up paying and for what. also what was their turnaround time.

Bob Jackson did my Mercian and it's fantastic, couldn't tell you how much though as the previous owner got it done.

Get the decals from Hlloyd, and go to Mario Vaz. Cheap and effective.

See BJ website and give them a call. I didn't think it was overpriced for the quality. Diffence between Mario V/Armourtex and Argos/BJ is the difference between powdercoating and stove enamalling. For soemthing like the HQ it's gotta be stove enamalling all the way.

we sent an email to BJ and are awaiting a reply.
Any more ideas
Colourwise maybe?

**Dear Bob Jackson Cycles,

I sent you an email concerning a quote for a Harry Quinn restoration on the 15th of April. A few weeks later, having not received a reply, I called to enquire. The person on the phone told me that you have been unexpectedly busy in the shop and thus haven’t had the time to get back to me. He assured me, somewhat rudely, that when you had the time to reply to emails you would also reply to mine. When this time was likely to come was a detail that the person on the phone didn’t want to say: “you will get a reply when you get a reply”.

Unfortunately, it has been almost a month now and I still haven’t heard anything. My hand has been forced and now somewhat reluctantly I have to take my frame elsewhere for renovation. It will probably cost me less anyway, or if it doesn’t at least this time I will be getting a customer service that reflects the price that is being quoted, e.g. Mercian.

I am glad to see that in these times of economic hardship, Bob Jackson Cycles are enjoying such high levels of trade that they cant cope with replying to emails. I for one will not contribute to your suffering by taking my money elsewhere.

Thanks for nothing and good luck…. you’ll be needing it.

**

What a bunch of wankers...

Do you guys know if Mario Vaz will do frame chroming. I know unlikely, but hey.