steel bar, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

steel bar n.

1. a needle.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1822		Egan Life and Adventures of Samuel Hayward 8: The thoughts of throwing about the steel bar* for the remainder of his days were insupportable to him. [*A needle].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

2. a measure of gin, when added to another form of alcohol.

1823

Rambler’s Mag. 1 Mar. 132: Give me a tumbler of flickery and put a steel bar in it (that is a pint of sherry and a quartern of gin, to make it palatable).

In compounds

steel bar flinger (n.) (also steel bar driver)

a tailor.

1781		G. Parker View of Society II 62: Kiddy-Nipper is a man out of work among Steel-bar flingers, which is cant for Journeymen Taylors.
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: A steel bar flinger; a taylor, stay-maker, or any other person using a needle.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1859		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. 101: STEEL BAR DRIVERS, or flingers, journeymen tailors.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1859].
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 160: I make the acquaintance of what I should call an unemployed journeyman tailor; but he is a ‘steel-bar driver out of collar’.
1873		Sl. Dict.