I also always thought I would send it back to Mercian to be done, to keep it all Mercian but when their prices went up last year they almost doubled overnight and it made it that much harder for me to justify. Then after watching the frames done by Dave and Martin over the last twelve months or so and seeing them in use and realising how durable, usable they are whilst still being every ounce as deep and beautiful quality if not more so than Mercians finish it was an easy choice. It also helps when the cost is substantially less.
I still had to buy the decals from Mercian after supplying my frame number and they alone were around £50 odd quid, for literally 4 decals and that wasn't including the Reynolds ones either. When they quoted me for the repaint they also wanted £26 I think to apply them. So the full repaint wasn't going to be cheap.
It was an easy choice on quality though.
Jamie