Originally Posted by
Little Darwin
Why would you want to increase your price by 50% instead of doing it locally?
There has to be someone near Hollywood that can do a good powder coat.
With round trip shipping of a frame ($60+), unless there is an epidemic of poor powder coaters that I haven't heard of, I wouldn't ship unless I couldn't find a reputable local powder coater.
For paint, that could be a little different since the cost of a paint job (let's say $400+) means that you're only paying less than 15% of the total cost to ship. And I would pay a 15% premium to get a painter with a great reputation.
+1
You live in Southern California, the undisputed car customization capital of the world.
In case you didn't catch my meaning, "the 818" refers to the San Fernando Valley (aka: "The Valley") about 20 minutes from Hollyweird (2 hours during rush hour), perhaps the largest shopping center ever, especially for parts and services.
Don't believe me? There's an auto parts shop that specializes in Nash Metropolitans (remember those funny little cars with the spare tire on the trunk?); that's all they sell. I also know of two shops that will restore old automotive wire wheels (Dunlops, Borranis, etc; and you thought truing a MAVIC Ksyrium was hard!).
All this car stuff trickles down to bicycles. Chatsworth and Northridge have many powder coating shops that know what they are doing so, again, grab an 818 area code Yellow Pages and call a few.
Trust the force.