Old School Construction Tools: Digging Bars, Manhole Hooks, And Probe Rods

Sure, power tools are the kind of toys that take things up a lot of notches

. Who wouldn't want to start a project that involves equipment you need to plug into the wall or that include an air compressor - especially the kind that also make a lot of noise? Jackhammers, drills, saws, or shop vacs: they're why some men and women get up in the morning. What kind of sucker manually hammers in a nail when a power nailer will get the entire job done in two seconds flat?

Is there still room for old fashioned tools anymore? You bet. The reason is that some useful implements simply do not improve with the addition of electricity. Sometimes, to do it right, you have to resort to old school methods. It's the kind of thing that brings any hobbyist back to his roots and makes him glad that he can rent an air compressor paint sprayer to put a new coat on the outside of his three-story colonial.

No, all joking aside, I bet you didn't think that digging bars, manhole hooks, and probe rods were useful anymore. Contrary to popular opinion, these three items are still greatly in demand and, depending on your profession or extracurricular activities, they don't quietly sit rusting away in the garden shed, either.

The first useful but manual tool on the list is a digging bar. Digging bars have been around as long as people have been digging into the ground. Since there are a surprising number of reasons why you would want to dig a hole, digging bars aren't going to disappear anytime soon.

Made of heavy duty stainless steel or iron, a digging bar is pointed at one end and usually has a spade-like flat edge on the other. You can find bars that are nearly too heavy to lift or much lighter ones, and both are good for specific situations. A heavy bar is often used to pound through rock, act as a lever for lifting big boulders, or chop tough tree roots. When used in conjunction with a shovel, you get even more bang for your buck. Light bars are great for all the same things on a smaller scale. Plus, you can keep them on your nightstand in case robbers make the unfortunate decision to break into your place.

Manhole hooks lift sewer and manhole covers. They're also great stand-ins for taking the lids off your Dutch ovens when you've misplaced your oven lid hook. It might be a bit of overkill to use a manhole hook for such a purpose, but you use what you've got.

Probe rods are not extraterrestrial torture devices in this case. Instead, they're used to probe the soil in order to locate tanks, water lines, and other underground equipment. You can also use them to locate soft spots in the ground. Basically, they look like a long sharp pencil with a T-bar on the top. If they're metal, they are covered in a non-conducting surface treatment to keep you from lighting up like a Christmas tree should you hit a live wire.

Some things simply don't need improvement. In fact, for these three items, any attempts to add functionality would actually end up making them less functional. When you need a metal rod to do a job, you can't improve on a design that was invented thousands of years ago.

by:Art Gib

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