Piece of reinforcing bar used during the construction of the NMAAHC

Unidentified · 2013

A cast off piece of reinforcing bar (also known as reinforcement bar or rebar) used during the construction of the structural wall behind the North History Gallery wall of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The Imperial Bar Size #18 ("Soft" Metric Size #57) piece of rebar is straight, and roughly tubular-shaped, and is primarily black with reddish iron oxide deposits at each end where the black epoxy coating has degraded and the steel is exposed. There are two thin, raised ribs that run lengthwise on either side of the bar and a herringbone pattern of ten transverse lugs molded in a diagonal slope across the rebar’s surface, running between the ribs. Each end of the bar has been cut off.