rbrown Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 Can someone tell me how you can test a nail to see how many lbs it takes for it to bend? I would like to do this so I can know relative strength required for each nail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SqeezeMasterFlash Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 There are articles on it on Tom Black's website here Tom Black and on Terry Duty's website here Terry Duty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbrown Posted February 18, 2004 Author Share Posted February 18, 2004 thanks; that is helpful. I'll be very interested to see how much weight it takes to bend these nails I've been fooling around with. Some of them feel very hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SqeezeMasterFlash Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 I've never tried to measure nails, but it seems pretty easy. I've always just gone by Terry's charts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbrown Posted February 19, 2004 Author Share Posted February 19, 2004 It seems like the number you get when testing would vary greatly depending on how you held the nail. If you held it in close, it seems it would sort of support the nail and require more weight to bend it. If you held it out on the ends, it seems it would take less weight. Am I wrong on this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bender Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 It seems like the number you get when testing would vary greatly depending on how you held the nail. If you held it in close, it seems it would sort of support the nail and require more weight to bend it. If you held it out on the ends, it seems it would take less weight. Am I wrong on this? Right on. The hand position needs to be exact every time. Also, the speed of which you lift the nail needs to be the same too. You see 100lbs at the ends of the nail pulled quickly could be 200lbs, pulled slow from the middle of the nail's ends. Hence: I've stopped testing nails and just go by feel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMunger Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I have a vision of making a rack that will hold a bar by the last 3/8" on each side, and hanging the weight by a carabiner clip. Rack would be raised by a hydraulic jack to prevent inertia skewing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbrown Posted February 19, 2004 Author Share Posted February 19, 2004 I have a vision of making a rack that will hold a bar by the last 3/8" on each side, and hanging the weight by a carabiner clip. Rack would be raised by a hydraulic jack to prevent inertia skewing. I had thought of something similar. Bender, because I am new to bending, it is hard for me to tell when I pick up a nail that is too hard for me whether I am just about to get it or whether it is out of my league. Testing would help with this. Last night on some nails that I thought were unbendable, I put a very slight kink in one so that it rolls around lop-sided just a bit when you roll it across a table. That tells me that I may be on the verge of cranking it down. Perhaps on a day when my hands are well rested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
climber511 Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 What I've come up with is this - a piece of 3/4" round stock as a handle - this is slid through two 5/8" sewn slings (climbing slings) of equal length. The piece to be tested is then slid through the bottom parts of the slings with a carabiner in the middle of the test bar and the ends of the test bar even with the outside edge of the slings and the slings adjusted to perpindicular on the handle bar. ( all forces are then put onto the test bar at the ends and at right angles to the ends, at least in the beginning until the bend starts) The carabiner is put into the loading pin, then dead lifted very slowly with increasing weight until I achieve a bend of 3/8" to 1/2". I tried the hands method and was not very consistant with it. This method is very consistant, giving repeatable results usually down to within 2.5 to 5#. What's amazing is the amount of difference in what I thought would be almost identical pieces of steel. When I started bending, I needed to know what I was getting into to avoid injury and have some logical progression to work with - with experience, I have a much better idea what I should be grabbing a hold of to progress without overreaching too often or too much. If you use a consistant measuring method, you can track your results very well, even if your numbers vary somewhat from some one elses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMunger Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 climber: very slick, definitely changes my little mental schematic of my "dream calibration setup." What's the largest stock you've tested this way? I just wonder if a guy can get into limiting factors on Grade 5's, 8's and Reds, limit being how much can be one arm deadlifted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
climber511 Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 CMunger - The 3/4" piece that I had just happened to be 24" long so it's easy to do a two handed dead lift as you straddle the loading pin etc. The combination of loading pin height, sling length puts the lift right at my best power position of about mid thigh so I guess the upper limit would depend on your DL strength at that position. I would guess most of us would be able to dead lift from mid thigh anything we could bend although I have no idea how strong Grade 8's etc are if measured this way. I suppose the test would turn out the same even if two people lifted it, as long as it was done slow enough and evenly. I know I've tested several things I couldn't even kink without straining my back any and the 3/4" "handle" is pretty pain free to pull on. It's cheap, readily available to anyone, and seems consistant in it's results. Give it a try and let me know what you think. It does yeild results much different than the Challenge Bars that are bent to I believe 70 degrees or so. This method will not work to that many degrees of bend, the bars "pop" out - rather violently at that. Maybe "explode" out would fit better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMunger Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Hmmm, better watch my toes then. I'll see what I can do about getting my hands on some of that climbing stuff of which you speak. A friend of mine used to be into rock climbing, I bet he has somethign I could use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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