1990 Cannondale SM700 rebuild

duncanthomas

Dirt Disciple
I picked up this 1990 Cannondale SM700 a couple of years ago. It was pretty rough and well-used. Not much of the original groupset remained, and the previous owner had upgraded it over the years. Some serious Cannondale quick-release paint on this one! Also cool that it was optioned with the Pepperoni fork.

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I serviced it with fresh cables, pads, tyres, etc., and smashed around on it for a while on some local trails and with the dog. Very ugly, but loads of fun.

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With the paint bubbling away, I decided to start to strip it back before it started to eat into the aluminium.

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I stripped the frame with paint stripper then gave it a light sand blast to help the paint key into it, gave it a coat of etch primer, and then a couple of coats of gloss black. Not a pro job, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.


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Last weekend, I built up my courage and had a go at redoing the splatter paint. Turned out to be loads of fun, and I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I had a friend’s frame as a bit of a reference. Probably went a bit heavy on the fork, but I like it.

In the end I found a kitchen fork and a palette knife with the right consistency of paint worked the best for the splatters.

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This is where I'm up to currently. The next step will be installing the new decal set I got from Retro Decals, then giving it a couple of coats of clear.
 
What a brilliant restoration you've done. I sighed when I saw the stripped back frame little knowing you had all the gear to make it look better than the original.

And what a bargain price too with all those XT bits. Are you going down the original spec route or at least more period parts where they were absent?
 
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