What was the purpose of the bands or straps around the boiler?
To help seal it and to keep it from exploding?
David B
covers the breaks of the insulation sheets
On a steam loco, the boiler is generally not directly visible. The bands hold sheet metal in place, which in turn holds asbestos lagging, or insulation, in place around the boiler. The lagging is also held in place by lagging clamps, the little “bumps” visible along the top of the boiler in the picture below. The smokebox (the weathered area fore- and aft- of the stack) on this loco is not lagged, although on some locos it is.
Wayne
The boiler bands cover the joints in the boiler jacket, the sheet metal cover that protects the lagging (insulation) from the weather. The jacket on a locomotive boiler usually mimics the shape of the basic boiler, which is an assemblage of conic and cylindrical sections (plus rectangular - Belpaire fireboxes.) Thus, the boiler bands are often directly over the joints in the boiler itself, but not connected to them.
In some cases, the jacketing is assembled in sections that are driven by the position of domes, turrets and other boiler-connected appliances. In that case, the bands have no relationship to the joints in the actual boiler.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Thanks, guys.
I helped restore 765 and pulled old abestos lagging off then later slopped new lagging on abestos free, a bricky foam smashed down in a wheelbarrow, watered down to make it like a clay, then hand slopped right onto the boiler…messy fun…wheee 8-D don’t wear your tux!!!