Uses of pry bars?

[cheaptools]

I own a few cheap multi tools, and use them.  The other day, I assembled a self assembly furniture with a cheap multi tool I own, and it worked very well.
But I see tools advertised as "pry bars" in Amazon and eBay, which are small and portable, and with some other tools hidden in the pry bars for multi functioning recently.
But they are still mainly pry bars. 

I was wondering on the practical uses of pry bars.  What do they do?  How do you use them for?  Have you own any pry bars in your tool box or carry one?
How useful is it?  What did you do with it?

[Crunchie64]

They’re supposed to possess a kind of time-traveling healing power.

Remember when you broke the tip of your favourite knife, the one your great-grandfather used for sixty years, with the handle worn smooth by his hands?

Instead of cursing yourself for trying to open a painted-shut window by levering it with the blade, just wrap it an a newspaper from 1932, bury it near the roots of a mulberry tree, and mark the spot by sticking a $10 titanium pry bar into the soil.

Dig it up exactly a year later, and the tip of the blade will still be snapped off, but the rust will make it almost impossible to tell.



Disclaimer - I’ve never actually tried this, but I think that’s the basic marketing strategy.


P.S. Welcome to the forum!

Hopefully you get some more practical answers too.

[Vidar]

I got long pry bars, medium prybars, small prybars, tiny prybars. Most are still straight. A few are U or S shaped.

I can't say I use them very creatively. They are used for prying things apart, adjusting positions under pressure, ripping out nails, adjusting doors and windows during installation, connecting to lift points, and once in while to dig, rip or hammer something.

As a sidenote if you bend a prybar (within reason) it can often be corrected with some gentle hits in the mid section so that its own overhanging weight gradually straightens it out. I might add that the quality difference and liftetime of a cheap and an expensive quality branded one is very notable in my experience.

[David Bowen]

I've got quite the assortment of prys in steel and titanium. I carry one or two on me daily, keyrings and what not. But honestly on the average they see no use. But it's there in case I need them, using them where a knife shouldn't be.

[Mr. Whippy]

Well...
A pocket prybar, especially one you can hammer on, is pretty handy.
Wedging stuck parts apart, lifting nail heads in tight spaces (think hurricane straps between walls and trusses), helping square windows/doors.  Ersatz standard screwdriver.  Open paint/putty cans.

Very handy imo.

[cheaptools]

They’re supposed to possess a kind of time-traveling healing power.

Remember when you broke the tip of your favourite knife, the one your great-grandfather used for sixty years, with the handle worn smooth by his hands?

Instead of cursing yourself for trying to open a painted-shut window by levering it with the blade, just wrap it an a newspaper from 1932, bury it near the roots of a mulberry tree, and mark the spot by sticking a $10 titanium pry bar into the soil.

Dig it up exactly a year later, and the tip of the blade will still be snapped off, but the rust will make it almost impossible to tell.



Disclaimer - I’ve never actually tried this, but I think that’s the basic marketing strategy.


P.S. Welcome to the forum!

Hopefully you get some more practical answers too.

Thank you Crunchie.   Yes, this forum seems to have really tons and tons of  useful info and advice on tools.  Superb.
I can see your point.  Where knife blade could snap in prying, the proper prying bar could do the job with no problems.
But from my experience of DIY works,  I seldom had to pry anything.  My works were usually putting the screws in and out the materials with the screw drivers (recently using the MTs), and cutting and shaping the wood materials.

[cheaptools]

Well, come to think of it, I did pry some garden path slabs when moving them to other location in the garden, they had to be pried to lift making gap between the slab and the soil in order to insert fingers to grab them.  In that occasions, I did use flat shovel to leverage the slabs.

[powernoodle]

For the great majority of us, I consider EDC pry tools to be mostly Man Jewelry.  Fun to own and and carry and play with, but mine virtually never got used.  On the rare occasion when I would need to open a paint can, for example, it wouldn't be that difficult to grab a big screwdriver to pry with.  And you aren't going to get that much leverage with a 2" pry tool anyway.  But still fun to carry and play with.

I own prolly 10 Atwoods, btw, which were all the rage a few years ago.  Maybe they still are.  Cool, spendy, designer pry tools like Colonel Whippy posted above.

[JP]

Having a pry tool around is handy. I use mine for picking, poking and prying things that I would likely cut myself or the object in question.

In a previous career the little box wrenches on some of the tools came into use when proper tools weren't around.

If you want to try out carrying a pry bar just start with a small one from the hardware store. Minimal cost to start and more functional for prying than most Atwoods.

[nate j]

Mostly a shameless repost of my response to essentially the same question in a different thread, but…

I EDC my PWII.  I don’t necessarily use it every day, but I have used the wrench portion for nuts & bolts, the rulers for measuring (of course), and the tapered end as both a flat screwdriver and a pry tool.  I’ve used it to open cans of paint, cans of Sterno, to help open locked doors, etc.

I can actually get quite a bit of leverage with it. 

And, unlike folding tools, I don’t think anything short of using a long cheater or beating it with a sledge hammer would be likely to do more than cosmetic damage to it.

Not singling out anyone personally, but as a general observation, when statements are made about how the Vic 84/91/93/111 mm bottle openers are handy for light prying, or the Vic Spirit Crate Opener is a great tool, etc., there don’t seem to be many dissenters.  But when the talk turns to small pry bars, everyone be like “What could that possibly be useful for?”
 

With regard to larger pry bars, in my experience, they are mostly good for wrecking things.  Occasionally, they are handy for getting under and levering up heavy things that are in/on the ground, like large paving stones.  Perhaps some of our members who have been more involved in construction than I have can comment further.

[BPRoberts]

For me, the issue with the pocket prybars is that they have a fairly tight "goldilocks zone." I've owned a few.  Most of the single function ones are barely bigger than the bottle opener on a multitool, and some don't even have a good handle to hold when I'm prying. They're barely usable and basically just duplicating a secondary function of another tool.

A lot of the others are bigger and heavier than an SAK, and in return you get a poorly designed bit holder or something. If I'm going to carry something the size of a large SAK or small PBMT, it has to do as much as those tools, not do one thing ok and two or three things poorly.

The PW2 is on the short list that's big enough to pry and light/useful enough to carry.

The ones that I seem to carry the most are the ones that're built into clips, danglers, etc. like the Opry or Mullet. That gives them enough body to actually pry with, while also adding a secondary function (somewhere to hook my keys, knife, etc.)

[cheaptools]

I see many threads with prybar topics.  It must have been common popular issues amongst tool users.

From my reflection on prybars, they must fit to the prying objects to work as prybar.  Hence the usage of a prybar as general EDC might be restricted.  For instance, you cannot use any prybar to pry open watch backs for changing batteries.  It has to be a prybar cut for the shape and size to work on pry opening the back of watches.  Use screw drivers?  Might work, but it will scar the watch badly for sure.

Pry open paint cans?  Again too small, thick, fat, needle sharp, too large prybars wouldn't work for that.   The objects which can be pry opened can vary enormously in shape, size and type, hence one shape, size and type of prybar can only work for small selection of objects which happen to fit to pry.  This could be a problem for prybars for being general EDC.

[David Bowen]

Well...
A pocket prybar, especially one you can hammer on, is pretty handy.
Wedging stuck parts apart, lifting nail heads in tight spaces (think hurricane straps between walls and trusses), helping square windows/doors.  Ersatz standard screwdriver.  Open paint/putty cans.

Very handy imo.

Love the LockNut Monster!

[cheaptools]

Well...
A pocket prybar, especially one you can hammer on, is pretty handy.
Wedging stuck parts apart, lifting nail heads in tight spaces (think hurricane straps between walls and trusses), helping square windows/doors.  Ersatz standard screwdriver.  Open paint/putty cans.

Very handy imo.

   Yes, that seems  a good EDC prybar actually.  Great design.

[nate j]

For Pry open paint cans?  Again too small, thick, fat, needle sharp, too large prybars wouldn't work for that.   The objects which can be pry opened can vary enormously in shape, size and type, hence one shape, size and type of prybar can only work for small selection of objects which happen to fit to pry.  This could be a problem for prybars for being general EDC.

Like screw drivers, there is no such thing as “one size fits all”.

However, certain features, like a tapered end, make the tool more versatile, and some pry tools can handle an impressive range.

[Blunt Object]

When I decide to carry an item, I think "can this thing do something that no other item in my carry can", and "how likely am I to need that exact function." Sure, you can pry with almost any tool, but as we all know, you shouldn't. In my minimal bag edc I have nothing sturdy enough to pry open a door or a window. A MT can probably handle some light b&e, but my tiny pry bar can take my weight and not bend. So I would say it deserves a place in my bag. A force multiplier if there ever was one. Price: €0, cut it from a freebie Stanley to make it pouch compatible. No redundancy.

[MrToolJunkie]

Interesting thread. I use pry tools for getting nails, staples, etc out of wood when building and often you don't need a ton of leverage. Also tight spaces next to a wall they can be handy. I have a Lynch NW which is a bit of pocket jewelry but also functional as a cap lifter and large screwdriver and pry tip. Saves a blade in many instances.

[Blunt Object]

Forgot to add, I naturally have pry bars and nail pullers of various sizes, handy for demolition and dismantling basically anything. But a few years back I found a huge, thick flathead screwdriver/prybar in my in-laws' garage (father-in-law worked construction and power lines) and ever since, it's my go-to tool of destruction.

As for the pocket pry bar, it's disposable, if I ever have to wedge something open or shut, I can just leave it there.

[Singh]

For the great majority of us, I consider EDC pry tools to be mostly Man Jewelry..

Yup.

if I  ever needed to pry open something like paint cans or whatnot,  the cap lifter on my SAK has worked just fine.

[nate j]

if I  ever needed to pry open something like paint cans or whatnot,  the cap lifter on my SAK has worked just fine.

My experience is that that works fine, up to a point. 

When that SAK starts to flex under the load, it’s not a good feeling.

Sometimes that extra length makes a difference.

Sometimes it’s nice to be a able to carry a trad or modern folder instead of a SAK, but still have that prying capability.

[Singh]

My experience is that that works fine, up to a point. 

When that SAK starts to flex under the load, it’s not a good feeling.

if a SAK won;t handle the job, then that's when I get a dedicated tool .

[nate j]

if a SAK won;t handle the job, then that's when I get a dedicated tool .

You do you.

I’ll continue to carry my little pry bar.

 

[cheaptools]

Ended up getting a set of prybar to go with my B/Bury Pro (LM Surge clone), and the Opinel No.8.
Feels like I can build a house with the tools.

[cheaptools]

The prybars worked  well scraping off dried plaster on the carpet.  Looks like they would be very useful in tackling  many odd jobs around the house and garden.

[ToolJoe]

I carry one of these in my wallet:
https://countycomm.com/collections/tools/products/pryx-tactical-gentlemans-titanium-multi-tool

I use it everyday at work to open up boxes and packages that arrive via UPS/FedEx. I've used it to open bottles as well. Not cheap but worth every penny.