The pry bar was a bent piece of steel with a flat end and a curved end. You shoved the flat end into a gap and you pulled and the thing on the other side of the gap moved. The pry bar was leverage in its simplest form. Archimedes said give me a lever long enough and I will move the world. The pry bar was that lever. The world was a nail embedded in a board or a baseboard glued to a wall or a door jammed in a frame. The pry bar moved all of them.

The pry bar came in sizes. The wonder bar was twelve inches. The flat bar was eighteen inches. The wrecking bar was thirty-six inches. The longer the bar the more leverage. The more leverage the less effort. A three-foot wrecking bar let a hundred-and-forty-pound carpenter move a five-hundred-pound beam. The carpenter was not stronger than the beam. The bar was longer than the beam was heavy. Length beat weight. That is the whole lesson of the lever. Length always beats weight.

The pry bar was a negotiator. You did not hit things with the pry bar. You convinced things with the pry bar. The sledgehammer said move now. The pry bar said move slowly. The pry bar applied steady pressure and the nail came out millimeter by millimeter and the wood around the nail was not damaged. The sledgehammer would have split the wood. The pry bar preserved the wood. The pry bar was demolition with manners.

The curved end of the pry bar was for pulling nails. You slid the V-shaped notch under the nail head and you rocked the bar on the curve and the curve was a fulcrum and the fulcrum multiplied the force and the nail came out. The rocking motion was the technique. The carpenter rocked the bar gently and the nail rose a quarter inch per rock. Four rocks and the nail was out. The rocking was patience applied to steel. The carpenter who rushed the rock bent the nail. The carpenter who rocked slowly pulled a straight nail every time.

Nobody uses a pry bar for finish work anymore. The oscillating multi-tool cuts the nail behind the surface without prying. The multi-tool vibrates at twenty thousand cycles per second and the blade cuts through the nail and the board stays in place. No prying. No rocking. No leverage. The multi-tool is faster and cleaner. The pry bar was slower and louder and left marks. The marks were the pry bar signature. A board removed with a pry bar had a dent where the bar pressed against the wood. The dent said somebody was here and they took something apart carefully. The multi-tool leaves no dent. The multi-tool leaves no evidence. The board looks like nobody touched it. Clean removal is efficient. It is also anonymous.

See also: Sledgehammer, Plumb Bob