Meaning Of Bar Poundages

[steelbiceps]

I keep seeing bars rated by pounds. How exactly is this measured? If I wanted to take a red nail and 383 pounds of something and do something to the red nail, how would I set it up?

What comes to mind would be clamping half of the bar securely in a bench vise and then loading the weight on the tip of the end that sticks out. Essentially, then, you're creating a torque at the center of the bar. But then what is being measured? The weight to achieve a certain deflection? The weight until it starts to bend plastically (when it doesn't fully straighten anymore)?

[gazza]

go into eric Milfelds gallery and browse through it he has a picture of his measuring device.

[porky]

rig something so the bar is held at the very tips, and then hang weight in the middle.

however much weight it takes to kink it 20 degrees is da weight deal i think

[EricMilfeld]

With my device, I measured at thirty degrees, with the points of force being applied 3/4" in from the ends of the bar. There really is no universally accepted way of measuring the bending poundage.

[steelbiceps]

I couldn't find the picture of the device in Eric's gallery, although there were some nice ornaments.

So the bar is supported 3/4" in from each end and loaded in the middle until it deflects 30 degrees? So, say, for a 6" piece, you could open a bench vise to 4.5", set the bar spanning across the tops of the jaws, and hang weights from the middle using a carabiner or something until your protractor said it was bent far enough? Sounds like a good system.