Making it Happen using the Hard Working Spud Bar
By: The Working Man
The Spud Bar is a variation of the crowbar or vice versa. It is a
straight, long bar made from metal and is used to strike blows to
something while being held lengthwise. The Spud Bar will then
break apart, move or deform whatever it is striking. It is
considered to be a first class lever as well.
You can use a Spud Bar to break up tree roots, concrete, clay,
frozen objects, and the like. It is commonly used when a pick axe
would work but there is no room to swing a pick axe. A Spud Bar
has an end that is thicker for tamping down soil.
The Spud Bar is about one and a half meters long or five to six
feet and weighs seven kilograms or fifteen pounds. They are
commonly cylindrical and made from steel that is one inch thick.
Spud Bars can have a chisel point at one end that is one to three
inches and usually a tamper that is two to three inches around.
The point of the chisel may be sharpened to a point, but in Great
Britain they are typically blunt. They can come in different size
chisels and in some areas the Spud Bar and the tamper are
separate.
In America the Spud Bar is commonly called a digging bar, slate
bar or pinch point bar.
In some cases the Spud Bar is made from fiberglass for removal of
shingles from houses. These typically have a wider chisel head or
they can have rakes. They may or may not have a tamper on the
other end of the Spud Bar.
In some parts of the world the Spud Bar is used as an ice chisel
to break holes through ice for fishing in the winter. These Spud
Bars are over six feet long and made from steel. The ends vary;
some have skewed edges, some have jagged and sharp teeth and a
lot of different head sizes and grinding angles all to help cut a
hole in thick ice. Before 1925 they often had handles or a steel
head so it was easier to hold to when cutting through the ice.
A Spud Bar can be used to peel bark from logs and is used as a
type of over large carpenter's chisel. These bars will most often
have a handle of some sort and will be over six feet long.
Spud Bars are also used in construction, by do it yourselfers, by
excavators, etc.
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