Spud bar

A spud bar, scale in inches/feet

For other uses, see Spud (disambiguation).

A spud bar, or in British English usually crowbar or just bar, is a long straight metal bar used lengthwise as a hand tool to deliver blows to a target, causing the target to move, break up or deform. It can also be used as a lever to move objects. Typical uses include breaking up clay, concrete, frozen ground and other hard materials, moving or breaking up tree roots and obstacles, and making pilot holes for driving fence posts. It is often used where space would not allow the use of a pickaxe. A spud bar with a thickened end can be used to tamp soil.

Materials and construction

A spud bar is typically 5 to 6 ft (1.5 to 1.8 m) and weighs around 15 lb (6.8 kg). They are typically made entirely of cylindrical forged steel 1 in (2.5 cm) in diameter with a 1 to 3 in (3 to 8 cm) chisel point at one end, and a 2 to 3 in (5 to 8 cm) diameter tamper at the other end. Chisel points may be sharpened. In the British Isles, spud bars typically have a narrow unsharpened chisel point at one end and a simple point at the other, and are often thicker, up to about1.5 in (4 cm) in diameter; a tamper is usually a separate tool, with a blunt end opposite the tamper end, or with a different-sized tamper on either end.

In North America a spud bar is often sold as a "digging bar", "slate bar" or "pinch point".

Variations

Some spud bars are available with a fiberglass body and wider chisel ends, or rakes, for specific jobs such as roofing tear-offs (eg removing old shingles and tar paper). These spud bars may or may not have tampers.

Ice spuds

Fishing through holes in ice is common in many parts of the world. One of the earliest methods of cutting these holes was to use an ice chisel, or "spud bar" as it is known in the United States. These spud bars are chisels over 6 ft (1.8 m) long, usually made entirely of iron or steel. Many variations exist, some with jagged teeth on the bit, some with skewed edges, and many different grind angles and head sizes. Early ice spuds (before about 1925) often had wooden handles and a steel head fixed with a tang and collar or socket, like a carpenters chisel.

Spud bars are still carried by many ice fishermen as a means to test ice thickness and safety. A sturdy thrust of the spud bar will often penetrate unsafe ice.

Log peeling spuds

A spud can also be a device similar to an oversized carpenters chisel used to remove the bark from logs. Spuds in this form might have a wooden or steel handle from about 18 in (0.5 m) to over 6 ft (1.8 m) long. This tool is also called a bark spud.

Users

Spud bars are often used by homeowners, construction crews, excavators and others.

See also

• Wrench > spud wrench