Adjustable pry bars are best sellers today because with advances in material technology, engineering design and quality control an adjustable pry bar can perform the functions of a large number of traditional single function pry bars, nail pullers, wrecking bars and crowbars. An adjustable pry bar set with different sizes of bars, head configuration options and extending bars can provide you with the equivalent of a toolbox full of different prying, pulling and wrecking tools in a compact, versatile package.
What is an adjustable pry bar?
There are two types of adjustment that can be found in adjustable pry bar sets and for individual pry bars. These are indexing pry bars and extendable pry bars. When it is properly engineered, the most useful form of adjustable pry bar is an extendable pry bar with an indexing head.
Explainer: what are the 2 types of adjustable pry bar?
- Indexing pry bars
- Extendable pry bars
Indexing pry bars have the capability to change the angle between the head of the bar and the shaft of the pry bar incrementally with a locking mechanism to hold the head in the position you choose.
Extendable pry bars have a mechanism for changing the length of the pry bar, usually using a telescopic function with sliding tubes or a solid bar that can slide inside a tube.
What is the advantage of indexing head adjustable pry bars?
Indexing pry bars have the advantage that you can rotate the head to fit it into narrow gaps that cannot be reached by most fixed head pry bars, and you can also change the direction of effort used to exert the maximum leverage on the bar, which is also an advantage when you can’t work around the task and reposition a fixed head bar to get the best mechanical advantage from it.
Why are extendable pry bars adjustable for length?
Extendable pry bars are adjustable for length. There are two benefits to having an extendable pry bar, firstly it has a built in extension that gives you increased leverage when you want it and the same bar can be reduced in length to make it more portable than a longer non extendable pry bar.
What problems can you have with adjustable pry bars?
The problems you can have with adjustable pry bars are all related to the fact that adjustable pry bars depend on excellent engineering design, advanced material technology, and expert quality control to make them as strong and reliable as a standard, fixed head, non-extendable pry bar, crow bar or wrecking bar. When you use substandard materials and methods, you end up with results like you see in the picture above, which is not a Poplock indexing pry bar!
What are the requirements for manufacturing an effective adjustable pry bar?
- Excellent engineering design
- Advanced material technology
- Expert quality control
This is a very logical problem, when you start with a tool that traditionally has no moving parts and is a metal bar shaped for prying and you decide to make it more complex, with several moving parts required to enable indexing heads and extendable shafts. The primary function of a pry bar is to shift something by exerting force that is multiplied by leverage. This can create very high stresses, and is the reason why historic wrecking bars and pry bars did not have any moving parts.
The fact we have the technology today to make adjustable pry bars doesn’t make all adjustable pry bars equal, the most significant problem with adjustable pry bars is not that they are difficult to design and manufacture, it’s that they are expensive to design and manufacture correctly. As we have found with indexing pry bars, cost cutting and poor quality control has flooded the market with inadequate, fragile adjustable pry bars that are inexpensive because they are not fit for purpose.
What are 2 technical advantages of Poplock adjustable pry bars?
At Poplock we put a lot of time and effort into perfecting our engineering, and we understand the importance of integrated design principles that achieve improved functionality through better engineering design combined with improved materials and superior manufacturing precision.
- Sharper pry bar tips for easier component separation
- Narrower pry bar heads that don’t compromise on strength
Two significant advantages of Poplock pry bars compared to our competitors are evident in our pry bar tip and head designs. The result of these two material and design innovations is that Poplock adjustable pry bars are better able to reach into narrow spaces than our competitors, and without sacrificing strength or tip sharpness.
Poplock adjustable pry bars have sharper tips than most of our competitors
By using higher quality materials, we are able to make our pry bar tips sharper than most of our competitors. This is especially important for parting operations, which are especially difficult when separating automotive components that have gaskets or sealants and are very close fitting. A blunt pry bar tip cannot be inserted into the available gap and cannot be used to separate these types of parts.
Narrower adjustable pry bar heads give better access in restricted spaces
The pry bar head thickness of Poplock adjustable pry bars is only 17mm, which is continued through the swivel joint of the indexing head. Some competitor products have a narrower tip, but when you come to the swivel you will find it is much larger. This is because they are using weaker materials which are unable to withstand the high stress loads on the indexing components unless they are made much larger.
How do you decide which adjustable pry bar is best for your needs?
We suggest that a bit of research and searching for real user experiences and reviews will give you a good idea of what you should avoid, and make it easier to decide which adjustable pry bar is best for your needs. Our own destructive testing of indexing pry bars was very informative for us, and reassured us about the quality of our product compared to our competitors, but there are other good examples on the market.
At Poplock we have made adjustable pry bars with indexing heads that fit in the categories of pry bars, nail pullers, crow bars and wrecking bars, and we make them with appropriate materials to our own patented designs, manufactured to strict quality standards. We would of course recommend you look at our indexing pry bar sets that are available from the Poplock Amazon Store. We’ll soon be releasing our own extendable pry bar design to add to our existing adjustable pry bar sets, it’s currently in the final stages of testing and quality control, so watch this space for further news!
