What's a Pinch Bar for?

It's a specialized pry-bar.

The pointed end is used to align two holes that a bolt or pin is going to be put through to hold.

The flat end is for prying - generally to get two pieces of something with holes that need to line up into more-or-less close alignment. Once you've used the flat end to get things "just about there", you run the pointed end through the two (or more) holes, and wiggle it around to get the holes lined up tightly enough that you can shove a bolt or pin through them to secure the pieces. (and in the process, push the pinch bar out of the hole)

You could say it "takes the pinch off" the bolt/pin so that it *CAN* go through the holes without binding up.

It might be used in front-end work, OR just about anything else where the use described applies - Ferinstance, steel beams that need to be bolted together - Shove the pointed end through one hole in a beam. Line the second beam up so that you can get the bar into the second hole. Wiggle. Presto - holes are aligned and ready for a bolt.

Railroad section gangs use a longer bar for aligning hole in tie plates, frogs and etc. The RR pinch bar is about 6 ft. long. Minor positioning of rails attached to the crossties can be made by several hands with bars in a prying motion. Rail cars can be rolled by prying between a wheel and the rail with the short angled end of the bar.

I have a really nice one on my tool box. I work in a steel fabrication shop and everyone pinches it. I haven't touched it in over two weeks yet it has been in continuous use. :')) Maybe that is the real reason for the name? Randy

Yep. Called a "26 pound bar". Well named. It also fits the socket in the railroad style jack that has a toe to lift the rail to tamp ties and a post to get under an axle when a car jumps the track.

Robert Sw> Railroad section gangs use a longer bar for aligning hole in tie plates,

A spud wrench has a similar pointed end but the other end is an open end or box wrench to fit the bolts that go in the holes you are lining up.

John

Looks like the tool that ironworkers use to line up rivet holes in girders. The pointed end is much like a drift punch.

Jim

Probably because, give or take size variations, it *IS* the tool ironworkers use to line up rivet holes in girders :)

They were also used in shipyards way back when the hulls were riveted. I still have the one my dad used during WWII.

Steve R.

I use mine for smashing finger tips and gashing knuckles. Occasionally, I use it to line up bolt holes or mount big tires.

It is the tool most thieves use to pinch your prized posessions

I never liked to use these on (the style of) jacks we used for machinery as the point on the bar would interfere with the gear rack on the back of the post. IIRC these were the jacks with the large "funnel" shaped sockets and not the later smaller socketed Simplex style.

dennis in nca

Great tool for "bar up, crib down"...

That's what I did the move of my BP with... and did the "bar up" and "bar down" with, along with just "baring and twisting" to get the exact final position...

I've also worked track crew in a tourist railroad in the "12 inch to the foot scale" and yep we used em to align rails and joint bars.

I've heard of a shorter version with just the taperd end called a "Bridge Bar", same deal, used to align holes just before ya stuck the rivet in...

Oh, and it's NOT supposed to pinch yer hand ..LOL...

--.- Dave