I showed my grayscale copy of the photo to the trucker. He said yes, the
ring is for seating tire beads and the hooks are to be pulled by a lever
in the hub. He said tools like this were developed for bias-ply tires. He
said the ring he saw was squeezed shut with screws pulling the ends
together, but sometimes straps were used to seat beads.



Well, if you can find some links to a tire beading ring that looks like the
one on my site, I'd be happy to take a look, but the links below contain
what I believe is the definitive answer for this metal band.

I posted a link to my site on a welding newsgroup, where eventually someone
posted this link, which says that it's a bevel band:

http://cgi.ebay.com/SAWYER-206A-BAND...13126002r33232

I also found this page:

http://www.kiwahweld.com/welding_equipment.htm

....where they have links to several beveling bands as seen he

http://www.kiwahweld.com/images/EQUI...ing%20band.jpg

http://www.kiwahweld.com/images/EQUI...g%20band. jpg


Someone else on the welding newsgroup provided some further info on the
beveling band:


"It's a pipe beveler band for a large pipe, and can be used to mount an
automated bug welder. Looks like about a 36". The traveling carriage
portion is held to the band by four little wheels with grooves in it. The
band is held off the pipe with little round feet. It is clamped around a
pipe, and then there is a hand cranked carriage that holds the cutting torch
positioned to the right angle. When used as a bug band, the traveling
portion is motorized. It usually holds a FCAW torch head, and has a plate
about 1 square foot that the welder looks through. There are six control
knobs to regulate speed and angle, as it changes with every pass. We used
these to weld 36" caisson 1.5" wall thickness with the caisson in the
vertical position, the weld in the horizontal 2g position. They are
essential in getting a precision cut on two BIG pieces of pipe so they line
up, and even though they work pretty good, and you can have a good operator,
there's a lot of work, not to mention skill, to bevel two pieces of pipe,
get a decent root, and get it all right on that big a piece of pipe. But
hey, if you blow it, you just start over. It would take the better part of
a day to bevel two ends, dress them, weld them out, and x ray them.

Last thought, kind of a spendy piece of precision equipment to be tossed in
a truck like that."


Still seems to me that the rods would get in the way of an automated welder,
but maybe not if the welder was made to be used with this particular type of
band.


Rob