I was placing an order with Henry James (USA True Temper Bicycle Frame Tubing Supplier) in the mid-90's when Hank asked what it was going to take to get more of my business. He knew that I was building most of my bicycle frames with the Columbus Metax stainless steel. I indicated to him that the tubing was in a limited supply of 1000 tubeset's and it would not be long before I would have to switch over to the True Temper Platinum series anyway.

I also indicated that it would be nice to see a tubeset with the same or close mechanical properties as the nitronic stainless steel. Currently my books listed the tubing with yield strengths of 265,000lbs/sq inch. Hank went to True Temper and started the fire under their engineers and they came up with the S-3.

Not only is it True Temper's first seamless tubing (This information is explained in my Lowdown On Tubing editorial) but with thin walls and special drawing of the tubes to provide performance enhances setting the standards of what state of the art steel bicycle frame tubing can achieve.

All of this comes with limitations, however. Rider weight limits are at #200lbs. There are now 3 "Kits" provided to the builder for small; medium and large. Top tubes are available in teardrop or round; downtube is oval at the headtube and bottom bracket 90deg from each other.

In the year 2000, Henry James called me and with excitement he exclaimed the promise of a new future for high end steel bicycle frames with the new S-3 True Temper Tubing. He said that in order to help promote the tubeset, True Temper was willing to offer a few of the first to any bicycle frame builder that Hank thought would help the cause. I was one of the first to build with it.

And that I did just that. Being only on an average of 150lbs of weight, I felt that I could not do the tubing justice without being able to add 50lbs. upon demand. So I put cantilever mounts on the frameset and rack-mount dropouts. Since the year 2000 I have ridden over 24,000 miles. In the the last 3 years, my major rides have been into Antigo Wisconsin and back to my home (round trip 60+ miles) with over 45lbs of extra weight. Sometimes I was pushing the overall "rider" weight somtimes to 220lbs. I have to say that the tubeset is most certainly the finest I have ever experienced. But more on that on the following pages. Additional photos can be found in my Gallery with a link at the footer.

As you can see in the information provided on the following page, the True Temper S-3 tubeset has very thin walls. My method of joining tubing is with either 45% or 55% Harris silver. The 45% allows for filet brazing and the 55% is great for brazons or lug work. The S-3 is out of the question for lugs. Its abnormal sizes and the oval ends of the downtube make it a TIG or filet only construction.
The biggest reason I silver braze is because I can. The second reason is that the temperatures are below the "glowing orange" range. By not stressing the tubing during the build, you end up with the mechanical properties of the metal the same after the build as before. This in turn provides the resilience or "spring" of what steel is noted for. Nothing is lost during the build.

Another advantage of building with silver solder is there is no distortion -nata-none- after the build. I do not need to put the frame on a flat table and yank the bajesus out of it to get it straight. Metal has a natural tendency to drift back to its original shape. So my frames are born straight, and remain always straight.

The "Staytight" seat cluster was created because True Temper does not want the seat tube to be reamed after the build due to its thin walls. By creating the miters that wrap the seat stays around the seat tube, I end up with over 5 times the surface area of a traditional "Fastback" configuration. This in turn provides less heat and greater strength to the rear triangle.

Tracking is incredible. The frame is very forgiving in the axle plane but stiff in the bottom bracket. This means that the road shock will have less effect on your body while you will find that the overall performace of the ride will be better- to the tune of dropping a gear from what you are use to riding in.

True Temper has done their homework. If imatation is the greatest form of flattery, then take a look at all the other high end steel manufactures that have tried to copy the design.

In my book, US Steel is by far the greatest manufacture of steel in the world. We have all the resources to do the job right, and so it is done that way.