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A digging bar is a long, straight metal bar used as a hand tool to deliver blows to break up and loosen hard or compacted materials (e.g., soil, rocks, concrete, ice) or as a lever to move objects. Digging bars are known by various other names depending on locale, structural features, and intended purpose. In Britain, Australia and New Zealand the tool is referred to as a crowbar, pry bar, or just a bar. In North America digging bars have various names including slate bar, shale bar, spud bar, pinch point bar, and San Angelo bar.
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Uses
Common uses of digging bars include breaking up clay, concrete, frozen ground, and other hard materials, moving or breaking up tree roots and obstacles, and making holes in the ground for fence posts. They are often used where space would not allow use of a pickaxe.
Materials and construction
The ends of a digging bar are shaped during manufacturing to make them useful for various purposes. Typically, each end has a different shape so as to provide two different tool functions in one tool. Common end shapes include:
Bars are typically 5 to 6 ft (1.5 to 1.8 m) long and weigh 15 to 23 lb (6.8 to 10.4 kg). They are usually made entirely of cylindrical or hexagonal forged steel with a diameter of approximately 1 in (2.5 cm). Chisel and wedge ends typically have a blade width measuring 1 to 3 in (3 to 8 cm). Blunt ends typically have a diameter of 2 to 3 in (5 to 8 cm).
Spud bar
A spud bar has a chisel at one end that is intended for removing material though a chipping or shaving action. In the British Isles these typically have a narrow, unsharpened chisel point at one end and a point at the other end, with diameters up to about1.5 in (4 cm). Some have fiberglass bodies, and some have wider chisel ends, or "rakes", for specific jobs such as roofing tear-offs (i.e. removing old shingles and tar paper).
Ice spud
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 a device variously known as an ice spud or ice chisel. Many chisel variations exist, including jagged teeth, skewed edges, and different grind angles and chisel widths. Early ice spuds (before about 1925) often had wooden handles and a steel chisel fixed with a tang and collar or socket, similar to a carpenter's chisel. Ice spuds are still carried by many ice fishermen as a means to test ice thickness and safety; a single forceful thrust of the ice spud will often penetrate unsafe ice.
Bark spud
Log-peeling spuds are used to remove the bark from logs. These spuds typically have a wooden or steel handle of length 18 in (0.5 m) to over 6 ft (1.8 m). This tool is also called a bark spud or a barking iron.