Hello all, this will take me a bit to get this posted with several posts, I will do it as I have free time in the evenings. If you have done this or have knowledge that you want to share on this adventure, jump on here and let us know how you did it. So for 18 months or so I have been interested in having the ability to drill my own water well. I have some land and I want to be able to install a few solar pumps in different areas to keep my food plots watered. Some of it is close to groundwater or near existing water sources and does not need to go very deep. On the property an old existing cabin well is 135' deep and is now too far from the new cabin site which is about 1000' or so away. I know this because I pulled the pump and replaced it. It was 41 years old. As far as water well drilling goes I am green to this. I have never actually seen a well drilling rig up close nor have I been around when one is drilled. But I have watched every video I could find on drilling a well, sealing a well and installing casing. Online, I have seen some very neat simple machines. That being said I am also interested in down the hole hammers and rock cutting bits. I have been thinking of ways to make my own bits. The tri-cone bit is very neat. I am going to drill into sandy type soil that is mixed with red clay. I don't believe I will hit rock but who knows. I have many options I could choose, to get a well. I am most interested in doing this myself. Some options I have thought of: A. Buy a tractor mounted pto drill. B. Use a skid steer with an existing auger attachment / Build a derrick to mount on a skid steer. C. Build a trailer mounted drill unit. D. Use a dump truck with bed extender, a long cable and heavy steel drop a pipe, hit the same place over and over to make a hole as it goes down. E. Pay someone. I will do this if my project fails. F. Other Looking through the options: A. - A tractor mounted drill was not going to have enough flexibility nor weight carrying ability. B. - I have a skid steer and looked hard at using it. I spoke to several people about it and got laughed at. I wanted the rig to be portable and to be able to move into the woods and do its job. After much thought I decided that what I wanted would be more than a skid steer could do. The weight of the derreck, drill and drill rod and misc was going to be heavy. I also did not want to ruin the hydraulic system on the skid steer since I will more that likely not be able to keep it very clean. I also do not want to work on one. They are hard to get into the engine bay and a pain to work on. C. - A trailer mounted rig is a great option. For me the power unit was the problem, I did not want to take the time to fab a diesel engine and fuel tank to a trailer to power the hydraulics. D. - The dump truck option works and I saw guys in texas going deep with this setup. This could be a 2nd attempt. E. - Not ready to call a professional just yet. F. - I am looking. On my rig project, I have decided that I want it to be able to do several things hydraulically. 1. Run a drill. Forward and backwards. 2. Run a winch. Up and down. 3. Power drill up and power down. I want up and down pressure. 4. Level the derrick left and right 5. Level the derrick front to back. 6. A hydraulic drill stem clamp. 7. The derrick must tilt so that the mast can lay down for travel. That is a lot of functions. In addition to that I also want 8. To use 2 6' long drill stems each time I add stem. So it will need 12+ feet of up and down travel. 9. To use existing materials I have around the yard. Things I have laying around, to build it.... 10. I want to be able to install 20' runs of casing. I will be building this rig on my OWN in my free time. I want to keep it simple.. My main area of concern is moving the drill cuttings out of the hole. Most big guys use hydraulic mud pumps which are high dollar. I have decided that I will not pay for one of those systems. I will not have enough horsepower available nor do I have access to a nice hydraulic mud pump. to be continued...
As far as I can tell, the simple DIY methods of drilling a well are: 1. driven sand point, requires a high water table and very sandy soil 2. water jetting, requires no rocks, and clayey soils 3. cable tool drilling, requires more equipment than the first two, or way more labor, but is capable of anything with enough time Rotary well drilling or down the hole drills are not DIY
Water drill rigs use a combination of high volume varied pressure air, water and drilling mud to expel cuttings, unless want to withdraw the drill at regular intervals not much else will function and will wedge drill head in bore hole in short order.
Cable tool rigs do not use a medium to flush the well. They bail out the cuttings as required. We had our water well drilled with this method several years ago. https://wellowner.org/resources/basics/drilling-methods/cable-tool/ pretty cool video and description here.
Do they just go in dry and bail out dry the first hundred or however many feet or does water need to be added to make the cuttings get into the bucket?
Just get one of those Deeprock rigs. Pretty affordable and use water pressure to flush out cuttings.
They have make up water to float the cuttings from what I understand. I personally have never ran one of those cable tool rigs. Fun Fact, a blind guy drilled my well with one....
That is an impressive rig. Here is a interesting idea..
Over the last 7 years I have been piecing together a DIY drilling rig and I am about 75% there. as follows: 1. Belltec hydraulic motor with hex drive. I have drilled hundreds of holes with it 3" to 24" diameter up to 12' deep. For power I use the FEL on the farm tractor, the CTL or the hoe on the TLB. All work great and being able to reverse is a must. 2. For drill string I have 210' of 2" pipe 7' length with rounded over threads on both ends with a collar on one end. 3. Swivel is a Lone Star with hex drive and adapted to the 2 3/8"- 8 round thread. It has a 1 1/4" water course. 4. Drill bit is a 3 wing carbide fish tail type and an accessory reamer. 5. Mud pump is a 3" Honda trash pump which is bigger than necessary but what I have. 6. Derrick is a old Hyster fork lift I was going to salvage the mast off and mount it on a trailer. There are many DIY videos on YouTube which answers a lot of questions. Other than working your azz off with the small lawn mower or 2 man post hole power units there is a common problem. Circulation of drilling fluid. To minimize problems one must have enough pressure and volume of the mud to bring the cuttings to the surface. Otherwise the drill string will get stuck and the risk of loosing your pipe increases. Also the cuttings need to be brought up in reasonable time to allow examination to determine the strata you are in.
Only really standout concern with a dry drill is locking the bit in the hole. Not a problem with shallow drilling but do fine until hit sand at 300' then lose a drill to collapse or just fall in or have hole collapse on drop bit and your done. Is a reason the regular drillers went to air/water and drill mud rigs.
Here is a portable hydra drill "deep Rock"
And here is a small rig with a rock bit cutting threw stone
A nice truck mounted rig. It has a tricone bit with fast drill speed
For those last two, need a water supply and mud truck and a serious supply volume compressor.
This is simple setup with a mud pump. Should be good in coastal areas..
This video shows how to use a dump truck, cable, pulley, steel pipe, and a back hoe to drill a well. Not really much needed special. Most contractors have this stuff on hand... To me this one seems like a great idea.
After looking at my options and what miscellaneous pieces of steel I have laying around, I am going to go with a small rotary type drill. I was leaning heavily towards the dump truck method but I am not sure I will have enough open area to work with long cables. I also located 250' to 300' of used drill stems for an affordable price. This mostly made up my mind for me. I located a decommissioned boom which is full of hoses, fittings, a hydraulic winch, several nice hydraulic cylinders, some real nice pins and bushings and lots of 3/8"s steel plate, and 1/2" plate. It also has a hydraulic motor that is on a gear reducer which should turn an auger type bit. Almost everything I need function wise to make it work. I will be using salvaged materials as much as possible. I am a little behind in posting the progress.
So you and I seem to be thinking in the same direction. I met a fellow that does his own wells out west. He has a very interesting rig that he made and he tried 3 different pumps. Starting with a small harbor freight pump, to a bigger harbor freight pump and then to a really nice 3" trash pump. He lost his drill string 3 different times. He has done bores that are 12 to 15" in diameter. Runs full on irrigation pivots. He said that the deeper he went adventually the pump could not keep up and problems began. He now uses a basic and cheap method of removing cuttings with water and an air lift. I am hoping to do something similar. Basically instead of pushing cuttings up the hole you suck them out.
That could work on a very specific soil type, and then it might have some big problems. They're doing a cable tool method substituting an expensive backhoe for a cheap winch, and doing without the automatic hammer action. Not the greatest strategy in my book. Pennsylvania oil wells were originally drilled with a steel drill, a rope and a few logs, and man power. The Chinese drilled wells 40 times as deep as you need, with bamboo, thousands of years ago. I would look into a used cable tool rig before I tried to turn a bucket truck lift into a well drilling rig, but I don't know you or what you do. My closest experience with cable tool drilling is an Amish neighbor that had another Amish guy drill his well, didn't see it in action, and the guy wouldn't talk about it much, but was interested in selling the rig for $10K. He wasn't legal, and only worked "close to home".
Problem with augers at depth is drive pipe torque and threads or other connections types failures.
I would get a cable rig that worked in a heartbeat if it were affordable and available. I have not seen anything around me for sale. In my area you can legally dig yourself a well for either your own use or irrigation. I looked into it. I don't plan to do this work for others. The drill stem I got was used for horizontal drilling. Maybe it is not strong enough for vertical work. They weight about 50 to 60 lbs each per 6'. So at 120' deep that is about 1200 lbs hanging in the hole. I have seen a lot of videos of guys in other countries using pipe and augers and they seem to work fine. I am attempting to duplicate what others have successfully done.
So I have been told if you keep the bore hole full of water it is less likely to collapse is that correct?
After much thought as in 6 months worth, I decided that a ditch witch model 4010 would be my base for my drill rig. It is in need of a rehab. it found it's 2nd life with plumber who quickly realized that a new small excavator was a better fit for him. It will live its last life with me. It uses a 3 cylinder air cooled duetz diesel at 49 horse power. It has 4 wheel steer, mechanical trencher drive and an alluxillary excavator on it. Which will be removed.
If your not familiar witha 4010, it is a very well made machine, it's frame has a lot of 1/2" plate, lots of good places to weld to and its a mechanical machine. It has a hydraulic creeper mode to slowly move the trencher as it digs, a 6 way dozer blade and and heavy duty rops. It does not have a radiator or wet cooling for the motor it uses a turbine and air. I am not certain that the heat from running a hydraulic motor will be to much or if i will need to add a cooler.
Basically yes. Most professional drillers will use a drilling fluid which is generally water with a thickening agent referred to as gel. The formulation can get quite involved in deep hole drilling like in the energy industry where there are mud engineers monitoring the fluid around the clock. For our purpose adding a little gel adds body to the water making it a bit heavier. Some types "coat" the bore hole and help stabilize the wall reducing sloughing of sand strata. Most well driller supply houses will sell it by the bag in powder form. If you want to get really specific on the mix it can be tested with a viscosity cup. I have watched many DIY videos where the drillers just used water. I'm not sure how that works. Horizontal drillers using Ditch Witch and Vermeer units mix their drilling fluid. Remember the thicker fluid will need more power to pump. Also, seismic drillers do basically the same thing we are discussing. They rotary drill shallow holes with a top drive mini derrick mounted on a fat tired mud buggy.
This is an interesting well drilling technique...
I'm following with interest, but not because I want to drill a well. Just because I've never been around well work and I like seeing guys do stuff themselves on the cheap.
So, I broke down the boom into more usable pieces. It could have been went threw and installed on a truck but it needs a pretty complex hydraulic system to make it work. I had hoped to use the valve body and electrical switches. This joker weights in at about 4000 lbs... I called Altec and they sent me the plans and complete hydraulic system information. I could see how every part worked once I figured out the plan symbols. Very nice guys there, I would buy one of their new booms if I needed one. This is an electrical controls valve body with mechanical levers in case of failure. Pretty cool and expensive stuff.
It needs a variable load sensing pump setup. After spending a few days studing it, I decided to take a step back and make it less complicated. Electrical winch controls, with safeties on every hydraulic circuit. Very well made with SO much things to reuse. So many hoses and fittings and top of the line stuff. I cut and removed every thing I could get. I cut out bushings, pins, hoses, wires, all of it. And put it in piles for later use. Did you know the pins and bushing's use isolators to try and prevent electrical shock by stopping the boom from grounding. All the pins are in heavy fabric type bushings. I did not know this...
This cylinder will raise and lower my drill. It will extend 14 or so feet.
Those drawings are actually to the relays on a TL150...
You are well on your way.
Not to make things more complicated, but Schramm makes a tele-mast system if you google them. Basically they use the hydraulic cylinders to push up the pulleys to get double the travel out of the top drive. video from the company. I'm curious what you are going to use to rotate the drill string?
The Amish were i live were going to build a rig . They were at my place looking for steel. I dont know if they got anything built or not. There are several different Amish groups around me they are the most primitive they have a machine shop but i dont know if they have electric welding . The Amish group i know the best can use portable welders. I am interested if they got anything going. The Amish i know all have Diesel powered air compressors they use the air to run well pumps.
They have some amazing machines. They look to be well funded an have lots of men working for them. When you see rigs like that you almost want to stop and be like what's the point. But my target is within reach, I think. I am going to use the boom swing motor to turn the drill string. I tested it on the ditch witch's hydraulics and it turns slower than I want. But maybe it will not destroy itself since it has such a large gear reduction on it. I definitely wont be plowing threw any hard rock with it. I am still trying to figure out how to attach to the gear with the drill stem...
Old Doug, About 15 years ago I got to go spend a week with an Amish family in Colorado. They were very nice and they were brothers near green mountain. They had a metal roofing business to include a roll former and a wood molding business that made trim. They ran there equipment with a diesel generator. They were allowed to have a bobcat and a phone on the wall at the business for conducting business. At home it was gas lamps, and no power. Water was heated with a copper tubing arrangement that set out in the sun. They traveled by horse and buggies and would pay non Amish folks to deliver there products. I will never forget my week with them. They had the finest horses I have ever been on.
That swing motor looks like may have a spring brake pack in it.
I believe you are correct. As best I can tell from testing it, it will be ok to use it as is? What I am not sure of is if the motor can handle a strong force pressing up on the sprocket? Or even if a lot of weight can hang off the motor... I dont know how it is made internally, I just need it to make it threw one good borehole... I was wanting to take the short method of just trying to use it, I was thinking of different ways to reshape the sprocket end without going to too much effort to be able to strongly attach the drill stem. Such as grinding it square or drilling a large hole threw it, for a bolt and slipping a coupling over it... I could make a transfer case of sorts to offset the drill motor to remove it from the ground up pressure. That could throw off the balance on the top of the mast. There is a lot of rabbit holes I can find on this project. The KISS method is in my mind. Most all rigs have water swivels in line with drill stem. I looked at them in detail, including how to make one. I believe I can drill my well without using a swivel or a mud pump. My plan is to attach the motor straight to the drill string. But I need to be able to attach one if my plan fails. I can perform small machine shop type work. I have a mill and a lathe and can just get by mostly by turning and fitting items slowly. I cannot cut parts to a plan or get specific measurement made parts made 100% correctly just yet. Mostly I can do rough parts, I am still not able to get mirror finish when turning. I dont know how to make a taper thread that will fit the drill string. I have seen it done on you tube but I would need a few days to figure out if my lathe could even do it. It has a good bit of backlash and some table wear so I am still learning how to get parts made correctly and dealing with an older lathe. I had to go to Ditch Witch 5 times so far, getting cylinder rebuild kits, and teeth for the chain. They have an adaptor that is a solid metal end that screws into the drill string and it has a flange on the other end to attach to with bolts. It is $900.00 for a small part...
The bearings will be set up for only rotational thrust, no real up and down. I think you would throw the bearings right out of it if you try to drive your vertical stem right off of the sprocket.
Anyone got any ideas on how to make an inline support that can couple to the sprocket and support the drill string?. Use common easy to find parts.. Maybe f350 / dana60 wheel bearings mounted in some kind of holder... Surely wheel bearings can take side loading?? I guess I could also take some flat plate drill a hole in it, put a shaft threw it. Put a bushing on each side of the plate but weld it to the shaft. So the shaft can't move up or down but it can spin. Then mount it in a housing. Weld that to the bottom of the motor frame. Couple it to the sprocket and cut an end off one of the drill stems and weld that to the shaft. Greeze it and let it go... Heck I could use the drill stem as the shaft ...
The old vermeer tile trenchers, used a modified ford rear end housing, set up for their gearboxes. Could set up something similar to a post hole digger like for 3 point? Or a gearbox off a old power company line truck digger?
Really any heavy 90 degree gearbox would work, hydraulic drive in, and the gearbox bearings taking the thrust off the drill drive.
How about a skid steer auger drive motor? Then when you're done you can put it back to skid steer use, sell it and get your money back.
I have a skid steer auger. I might use it if I can not get the swing motor to work..
Here is how the front of the excavator attachment looks The arm taken off.. Here is a picture of the pin wear on the bucket... bye bye ..
I decided to use some used pallet racks as the frame for the mast. I went back and forth between that and a big steel I-Beam. Being that the cylinder can extend 14 feet, and that I needed area to attach other items to I wanted a little wider frame work to be able to work off of. I decided that about 2 feet of width would be about right. In this photo you can see the drill motor mount that was cut loose from the boom, and you can see the boom pivot assembly being placed on to the frame work. I have to cut and redo this several times to get it where it needed to be. In this photo, I have set in the mast hydraulic cylinder. In placing the cylinder, I was mostly worried about how to balance an offset load so that it could not place a side force onto the extended cylinder. I decided that I would need the cylinder to follow the rear rails while the drill follows the front frame work... In simple terms the cylinder justs needs to provide a linear force... you cannot use the cylinder to support a side load. The frame work must carry the load and the cylinder is only used to push or pull it in a straight line. An issue I have is the cylinder is about 10' long and it extends another 14 feet, so you need 25 feet or more of mast length... I have only have 18 feet unless I decide to extend the mast frame work... I cut out the cylinder mounting bracket from the boom and used it to mount the cylinder to the mast frame work. I also torch cut the ears off the second stage of the hydraulic...
Looking down the mast from the front side. Working on the height, balance and correct center point for the pivot pin assembly. And getting every weld I can get on it while it is still on the ground.. Since I was using some parts that were already made for another application, I had to make it work with what I had. As you can see, I am not going clean every torch cut and make it pretty, I just want it to be strong and for it to work. My spare days working on this are flying by.. Mostly only get rainy days to work on it. The sheer size of the mast and weight make it hard to move around and be able to weld all places. I turned it over and got everything from the top and bottom and will get the rest once it is standing up. Our forklift is now having problems moving it around due to the weight and length of it. It needs an overhead crane but don't have one. In testing where to put the pivot, I had to determine how much length would be needed to get the mast to pivot off the front of the ditch witch and I needed the pivot to be in the center of the load.... I was able to use a single chain with the lift to locate the load center and went from there.
Today is another rain day... At this point in the project. The mast is ready to be mocked up and mounted to the frame. I brought over a skid steer with a set of forks to help speed up turning the mast over and getting it in the right spot. The ditch witch had a dozer blade on it. I did not want the frame work to stop the blade from being able to be used. I also had to keep the frame work up high so that the trailer approach angle could still work. It wants to drag on the front edge. My pro cut 55, I got it used. One of my favorite tools.. You can quickly widdle down steel to fit in strange shapes. This looks like a tri-angle plate and it is but is has a slight backwards lean. Nice tight fits.. Easy to weld.
Mast is mounted up. You could use one hand and 3 fingers to raise or lower the mast. Almost seemed like magic for it pivot. Next it is on to my tilt cylinder. It was interesting figuring out where to place it and how. A lot of guys have had to do something similar making a trailer dump bed. This could give you an idea on how to mount a hydraulic cylinder to achieve a 90* degree movement. On a trailer you can set it in much closer or even inside the frame work. This cylinder was taken off the boom and was the cylinder that would raise and lower the boom angle. It is about 48" in length and around a 4" shaft diameter. The cylinder location had to allow a lot of other movement of steel so that it did not interfere with my mast cylinder movement, the drill movement, the line winch, and hydraulic control panel. Looking at the mast it is seems to need a large cylinder to move it but it does not and this cylinder is overkill. It was part of what I got off the boom and the length worked out nicely.
Now that I have it set. I tested the tilt cylinder.
Now I want to mount my line winch. I also am figuring out hydraulic line placement and some hose lengths for my different cylinders. I wanted something that could help handle casing weight. This unit has rated 1000 lb or so capacity with the rope and steel wire inside. Another boom takeoff. At this point 6 hydraulic functions, are being used. 1. Mast tilt 2. Winch 3. Drill up and down 4. Drill turn 5. Left stabilizer. 6. Right stabilizer. 7. I am out of spools...
After testing the hydraulic control panel. I decided to relocate the control panel so that it will be closer to the work and easier to reach.
After several days over many weeks thinking about how I could protect and keep my main lift hydraulic cylinder from destroying itself with too much down or up pressure causing the frame to buckle and/or the cylinder to bend. I came up with an assembly that would travel and would support the drill with multiple connection points to help balance the load across the framework. The drill is going to slide on the rails on a carraige. Here I am drilling some mounting holes for the outside carraige. The assembly is made in 3 parts. Drill carriage, lift cylinder carriage, and a connection between the 2 that allows for height change. This is part of the upper carraige for the lift cylinder. I bought a few 10 packs of 3/4" shaft diameter sealed roller bearings off of amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088HG8VW3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1 to help it move along the framework. These fit the common bolt size of 3/4", the bearings are rated for about 2000lbs each. I have a 5 gallon bucket of bolts and washers which easliy allow me to change the spacing. As hard as I tried to weld the mast frame to the same width it varied just a little due to the welds pulling it in in places. The carraige could have moved on just a metal to metal fit and slide with grease but I wanted it to roll freely if I get too much down pressure.
Here is the top carraige assembly from the front view, extended. This photo shows the rear sliding top carriage, front of the top carriage and the lower drill carriage / mount and connector bar installed. The connector bar can change the resting height of the drill motor. A rear shot of the upper carriage.
The 4010 had serveral cylinders that required repacking. So far 6 in total. The cylinders use the retaining ring that comes out as you turn the gland. One in particular had stripped the hole out of the gland so the ring did not want to come out as you turn the end. After serveral hours of work I was able to get the ring with plyers and got it out. Thought it was going to ruin the end of the cylinder. On several of the retaining pins they had rusted into place. A torch and a hydraulic press was used to remove them. Had to weld a make shift frame to flanges to hold the porta-power cylinder next to the pin bushings. Also had to weld the tabs on each side of the cylinder together with supports so that the porta-power did not bend the flanges.
Went ahead a loaded up a few thousand pounds to test out the lift cylinder and to check for flexing or missing or bad welds. The hydraulic system lifted this load without any change in motor rpm on idle. The frame and mounts did not move or flex. The carriage moves smoothly up and down. The lift cylinder has safeties in it that will not allow it to move unless it has hydraulic pressure... If you blow a hose or turn off the machine you cannot lower or raise the lift... Also checking cylinder lift speed, and general function. This brings me up to current progress on the rig work. Next will be: 1. Mounting the drill motor and hydraulic lines. 2. Building a housing to protect the motor from up and down stress. 3. I need to build a drill stem guide and table, with hydraulic clamp. 4. To build a lower mast lock which will allow me to trim it into level with the cylinder and then lock the mast level to the lower portion of the frame assembly. I do not want to rely on the hydraulic cylinder to hold it on level while drilling. 5. I need to build an auger end for the drill. Size not sure about. 6. I need to build a mast head and guide for the winch line. 7. I need to plumb in for the hydraulic clamp.. Then further testing to check down pressure and drill speeds. I am considering installing pressure gauges to monitor the down force and drill turn force.
Is that an MF135 (diesel) in the background?
Good eye. Yes it is.
I have a UK model with Multi-Power. Most reliable machine I own and it's a 1st year UK 1965 model. Sips fuel is an understatement.
I also have a mf165, it has foam filled front tires and 6' bush hog. You are correct about the 135 fuel usage. Mine has lost the pto lift and I need to repair it. If I could only find the time.
After looking at my hydraulics, I decided the easiest and cheapest way to add another hydraulic function would be to install a double selector control valve. Since several functions on the machine once set will not need to be used again while the machine is working. I decided that a double acting valve could shift fluid control from one circuit to another. The way it works is fluid from your spool control enters / exits the center ports, then depending on which way the valve is set it either uses the top 2 ports or the bottom 2 ports. This saved me from needing to plumb into the PB port on the 6 spool control valve I have. It would have taken larger hoses and more work to add another spool. The cost of a new spool would have been about $50.00 plus hose tie-ins. I will pull fluid away from an outrigger once it is set into place. Total Cost used on ebay was $100.00. I also needed 6 - 1" npt fittings to jic #6 at $35.00 I should have enough hoses laying around to tie right into this selector. It was hot today. We have been having heavy rains late in the day or at night causing all dirt work to stop. Been canceled 4 different times on grading work in the last 2 weeks. The daily temps have been hitting 95* with high humidity. Heat warnings of 111*. Standing in the sun welding and turning a wrench had not been too fun lately. I have been on the fence about extending the boom length. I needed a mast 25' long and only had 18 or 20'. I decided to go with what I had on hand. This will limit me on just being able attach one drill stem section at a time. I am not sure it is worth the effort to extend it now or if I should test this out first to see if it has a chance of working at all. Odd's are if I don't extend it now before sending it off to work it will never happen.
Wow, your rig is moving right along. I am envious! Tool jointed drill string as well.
I know right. I have literally thought about making this for 18 months. I have not had water on my cabin which I am building myself also. I will not close any interior walls until I have pressure tested and used water in the plumbing, so I want this done yesterday. For several reasons I decided that I wanted to drill my own well since I have done everything else on my cabin myself from clearing, to grading, to concrete, to framing, to making all wood used in the cabin, electrical, plumbing, roofing all of it. The time and effort and cost was not considered in making this rig, I know that I could have paid to have done cheaper, faster, and probably better than I can do it and I could have focused my time on other items. But I guess I want to do it myself. Sort of like a rite of passage. Cheap and fast won't be good. Good and fast won't be cheap. Cheap and good won't be fast... I looked at the options and thought I can make something to do this job with. I just want to try to do it myself and I want to feel like I gave it a fair shot. I am so eat up with excitement that I want to quit paying work and just do this work. My dad offered to get me a well and I said just give me a chance. I CAN DO THIS... At the start of my project, I spoke to several well drillers, and even went so far as to stop by and ask if I could buy a rig that I saw from the road that was from long ago not being used and rusting away. One guy did not want to sell anything or give me any advice other than yeah right and a snicker and he was just plain cold. He probably thought I was a crazy yuppie... I then asked to buy well screen and they would not even sell that or tell me where to go and get it... Like getting well screen is some industry secret. Another guy flat out laughed and said it would not work. I decided at that point in time that no matter what it takes I will do this. I will find out if my determination is enough to complete the project or If my temper overloaded my a double s. I have always helped people when they want to do grading or concrete work themselves, I will even tell them how to do it if they need direction. I will come in and do a portion of the work if they need help. It does not matter to me. Everyone's reasons and money for what they do are different, and I have learned not to stand in the way but to help move forward. I have received a lot of work because of my attitude. I have been chosen to do work not because my price was the cheapest but because I would sit and have a conversation and answer questions that customers had. I have been hoping that someone with experience would jump on and correct any shortcomings I might have. I hate learning everything the hardway.
The MF165 is also a great tractor. The US only MF150 is probably the best of the 3 cylinder models. It's basically a 135 engine in a 165 chassis with heavier front end and better power steering. Mine has everything but power steering but have read there were some issues with the power steering models. In late 1971 the UK models got a heavier straight front axle. They were made up to 1979 in the UK. The replacements were basically the same thing. I've read the AD3-152 is the most popular engine ever put in a tractor.
Here is a couple pics of the hydraulic motor I plan to use on my rig. I hear you on trying to steer clear of "the hard way". While there is certainly a learning curve it is all pretty simple. Safety precautions regarding over head equipment, pinched hands and fingers must be adhered to. I can not overstate the importance of drilling fluid management. As I mentioned in a previous post fluid volume, pressure and viscosity is of paramount importance. One needs to be able to capture and examine the cuttings as they exit the bore hole. Additionally, one needs a settling pit for the cuttings to "settle " out that the lighter fluid over flows into to be recirculated back into the hole. One other "biggie" is some type of slip set-up to hold the drill string while making or breaking a connection or tripping in or out. You certainly don't want to drop the drill string, bit, stabilizer, reamer, etc. There are quite a few videos on this. Having a pressure gauge and a valve on your derrick top drive assembly hydraulic circuit that is plumbed to monitor the pressure, let gravity pull the drill string in while feathering the flow to control bit weight.
That looks like a nice strong motor. I am hoping to overcome the fluid problems by sucking out the mud with an air lift pump. Once I build a protype I will post it up.
You could look at some Lowe post hole power heads. They have some for bigger machines.
Here is a trailer mount rig that a friend sent me photos of. I did not get to see this in operation. But they were able to install several wells with this. He uses 2" electrical ridged pipe for his drill string. Stated that is long and the ends are machined straight and that it bores straight down. He got a large quanity of it for a reduced price. It is $84.00 each at home depot now. I think he got it for $20.00 each back in the day... He thought that my used drill stem is a bad idea because the hole might start to curve as it goes down due to bent stem. This rig could be powered with a tractor or a skid steers hydraulics. He said that it takes 3 men to run it. One to drill, one to deal with the airlift and one helper. Stated that he could hit a 150' deep in a few hours as long as no hard rock. It uses an electric winch and an airlift to remove the cuttings. And he used a wheel motor off a genie lift i think..
I am not familiar with a "air lift pump". Is this drilling with compressed air?
In a round about way. Technically it would be pumping with air. You use air pressure to lift the cuttings and water out of the hole. The simple way to do it is follow right behind the auger with about and 1.5" pvc pipe with an airline attached to it about 1' off the bottom. One guy on YouTube said @hoyofernando8 years ago Dust Devil Commercial divers use the Air lift for dredging, and it works great, as it can handle large volumes of solids, mud and sand. I worked on dredgin projects moving more tan 10,000 m3 of material from the seabed Airlift pump - Wikipedia en.m.wikipedia.org
Here are several pics of the bit, reamer and swivel for my project.
Legdoc, Is that a bit that you made?
I purchased the bit, reamer and swivel. I made the subs out of 4140.
I decide to make the mast taller.
The mast is 24' tall now. It seems really tall. But in order for me to be able to go 2 drill stems it is what I need. So a day and a half later here we go. Now I am working on the top. Setting pulleys and preparing the head for the winch line.
I tested the 2 stage main lift cylinder, it will lift the drill head to 16' And it will push the top of the cylinder to 24'. I was concerned that the cylinder would need an extra support in the middle as it moves up. It definitely will. The cylinder will top out and touch the top of the mast, this causes the cylinder to bend in the middle and show its flex.
Anyone make there own Hydraulic hoses, it looks like I am going to need a few. I happened to be at the hydraulic hoses place when a concrete truck mechanic came in and got 2 20' long 3/8s hoses gates sae100-6. 5000 psi The bill was $1000.00. I guess it was over $20.00 per foot. I could not believe how much it was. I called royal brass and hose and they want $13.00 per foot for just the hose. Ebay has some cheap r2 hoses but I do not have a way to put on Fittings. Nor do I know if it is worth buying. It is about 1.00 a foot The main long hoses, I got off the boom lift are 11000 psi non conducting and they have cracks and are seeping fluid. Just found out when testing the snd stage lift. I have been looking for a solution for my drill motor lines and the second stage lift lines. A lot of moment in those parts. I was thinking of buying some 1/2 galvanized gas line at home depot welding on some ends and attempt to cut hoses lengths down. It is not looking good. I need 4 hoses to be able to go close to the top of the mast. The boom lift had some 45% degree compression 3/8's steel lines with jic#6 ends on it. I have not been able to source that line for an affordable price either. Any suggestions?
Galvanized isn't supposed to be good for hyd. systems and I don't know if gas line would be good for hyd's. I'd guess 3/8" 5000 PSI is a special hose. If you're running around 2500 PSI standard 2 wire hose should be fine.
Schedule 80 or 120 black iron pipe and heavy or hydraulic type fittings are probably more affordable. Somebody more knowledgeable will have to chime in on pressure ratings for those.
Even hyd. tubing with flared ends might not be too much if it doesn't need any fancy bends and you have a good hyd. shop near by.
Stainless Steel Tubing Coil, Type 304 - 3/8" OD x 25 ft, .020 Wall | eBay Made from widely used 304 stainless steel, this tubing provides excellent resistance to heat, corrosion, and chemical exposure while still being easy to form or weld using standard tools. 1 × 25 ft Coil of 3/8" OD Type 304 Stainless Steel Tubing. www.ebay.com I found some 3/8"s stainless coil pipe on ebay and Amazon. I wonder if this would work with either tig'ed on ends or flared pressure type fittings. I also wonder how much of a pressure spike it could handle before blowing out.
I thought I would post how I came up with the mounts that move up and down the frame rail. I needed to make a mid cylinder support for the mast hydraulic. So I took a few extra pictures. If you are not familiar with basic cheap metal channel, it is flat on the outside and angles thicker on the inside. It is not completely straight and true to something like a forklift mast. This makes it challenging to drill and to use the angled side. It makes it hard to put in a vise or Milling machine with out making a jig for some fast drilling operation. After using this stuff I figured out that if you lap it, it is almost straight and even. I use a second piece to slide along the other piece. I use a bearing to set clearances. I set my bearings so that there is a slight amount of play for clearance changes. I must drill the holes in the correct spot and I do this with a Milling machine. Bearings are optional and you could just use grease between to 2 pieces of metal . I cut one flange off and use it as a spacer so that the vise can clamp it. It still will work its way loose as your drilling it so watch out.
Look what I found in the bone yard. Can you guess what this was and what it is going to become...
I use those drill rods on a horizontal directional drill and they are designed to flex 10% per rod so you can steer them. They will flex more than that if you hit something solid.
You'd need to know the pressure rating. Beverage systems and stuff wouldn't be near to hyd. pressures.
Surplus Center has hose assemblys cheap enough not to mess around You can get field attach fittings although they are expensive to put on bulk hose Ordering hose online is far cheaper than locally universal hose and fitting is where I have got hose and field attach fittings although they can do assemblys too
DiscountHydraulicHose.com Discount Hydraulic Hose covers all your hydraulics needs. Custom Hose Assemblies, Fittings, Adapters, & much more with quality services and support. www.discounthydraulichose.com They have all sorts of stuff cheaper than anything local to me. Joe H
Surplus Center www.surpluscenter.com Yes I see they do have a nice website and a wide selection of hydraulics. THank you. 3/8" x 180" JIC 6F Swivel x JIC 6F Swivel SAE 100R16 Hydraulic Hose Assembly 5000 PSI NRP Jones | Hydraulic Hose Assemblies | Hydraulic Hose and Hose Assemblies | Hydraulics | www.surpluscenter.com 3/8 x 180 JIC 6F Swivel x JIC 6F Swivel SAE 100R16 Hydraulic Hose Assembly 5000 PSI NRP Jones, Hydraulic Hose Assemblies, 3/8" X 180" JICNRP Jones,A150-06-606-606-180 , www.surpluscenter.com 15' of 100r16 3/8's with jic fittings. $ 44.85 That is only about 3.00 per foot. They are the lowest price I have seen. I have not found just the hose that cheap....
I saw that it said beverage system also. I have seen the same item listed 4 different ways. One listing showed the pipe rated at 2500 psi. Not really sure what they are selling. Other than .20 wall thickness.
Finished up the mid level support I have gotten better each time I have made one. This is the 5th one and by far the hardest to install. Had to cut and widdle out metal to get it to go into place. Took almost 1.5 days to make and install this part. The first set of brackets were a little too small so I had to make them again.
This photo shows the mid level mast support being mounted in place. It is hard mounted in, as in welded in place so to remove it would require using a gas axe. It added a lot of stability to the mast when extended, it does not show any flex when under pressure. Curious to see how it does with the drill pressing on it. I went ahead and purchased a Parker hydraulic hose press. Looking forward to laying hands on it.
good looking build so far. but something to keep in mind is that you will need to be able to pull a minimum of twice the weight of your drill string. that way in case you end up stuck you have some extra power to try pulling it out. if you think those hoses are expensive then you definitely don't want to be paying for a fish job.
Thanks. Probably would end up with a lost drill string. I was in the process of trying to figure out how to secure the lower portion of the mast to the frame once it is stood upright. I need to be able to lock it down and make it ridged and to be able to still have and adjustment to move it in or out a 5 or 10 degrees to make it level. I keep going back to using threaded rod and nuts to make a simple connection but It does not really seem right. I was also considering having it slide into a pipe type clamp but still searching. I stated above that I had purchased a Parker hose crimper. The ebay seller flaked out and decided to not ship the item. I ended up purchasing a coil o crimp weatherhead crimper with an assortment of fittings. Unfortunately between going to 2 auctions, hunting season planting, picking up an excavator and a bucket truck and starting a small bridge replacement my drill rig is on the back burner. I did not even get time to test out the crimper. I stated that I would not take any more big jobs but I got cornered by previous customers. I do not want to complain about work because I have seen what a lack of work will do to ya also. Had another customer call and look a lot clearing job in the city. Going to have to let some work go it seems. But my drill rig will be on hold at least another month..
Generally not a bad thing. More time to think about how to do things on it. I know my projects go better when I think about them longer.
Item 11 Winning lotto ticket. Since 11 is unrealistic any project works out best on a 70/30 idea. Proper planning and design allows the construction to take up 30 percent of time, thought and energy. Design the rig, plan the steps needed and FOLLOW THE PLAN. A buddy has one with an 8hp motor that you extend by threading another 10' pipe section above the bit. We tried 20' threaded pipes to extend but they can/will twist and break. It works quite well. We have a 28 one ton Ford Model A that is extended and was used as the well casing setter by my Grandpa who dug wells in the 'Valley of Hearts Delight," which is now called Silicon Valley. Have you considered a well focused hefty duty spray to bore? That could work out with some planning. The 28 truck would probably take as much time and effort to get running as design and build of a custom setup. There are 3 wells on the ranch and none deeper than 35' where a clay cap begins. Next water is at 400' and salty. Good luck with it. Have you considered the type that has a rotating platform in center with the extensions and drill turned by the platform? That may be the simplest and will apply the rotation to square channel steel that fits the 'hole' in platform. Downside could be leveling the unit if drilling on a slope. Good luck with it once you start drilling. Keep broken bits/pipes recovery in mind as that is usually a beach to pull snapped pieces up and can mean start at ground level again in a slightly different place so you don't run into twisted steel. On mud removal you can dig twice the diameter and feed casing in as you go. Not simple but could work. Wouldn't it be a lot less work to run piping to house and food growing areas from existing well? Make a hand operated winch lower/raise clam shell that fits without impacting sidewalls on the up/down is possible. Thank you for giving me something to think about besides bleepety blank rams and hoses spewing 17usd/gallon hydraulic fluid.
Hello,. LstLk2hi, Welcome to HEF. I did not know that the Silicon Valley was also called the Valley of Hearts Delight. Is a well focused heavy duty spray to bore the same thing as a jetted well? As far as running pipe, I did consider that and already have enough pipe. I was thinking more along the lines of 1 is none and 2 is one. A little redundancy. Some of the deer plots are spaced over a few miles and a few other guys are willing to chip in on the plan. We are hoping we can set up a few solar panels and and a controller that turns on once the panels have enough voltage... I met a guy that worked for a few years in Florida doing sand wells he told me there rig had a steel pile driver on it that was used to push a casing in as the drill / jet worked the soil loose. They used pvc pipe as a casing. He stated they did not go deep because the water would get saltery if the did. Most wells he did were around 40 feet.
Wow, I can't believe one year has passed and my drill rig is still sitting and looking at me in the corner. Bits and pieces of steel, hydraulic hoses and the lot. I am coming back to this ....
Well I finally took a few days off work. My drill rig has been sitting in the corner. Front tire went, battery went bad. I decided I would jump back into this. Once I got a new battery in it. I had to figure out why the starter would not engage. Rusted connections. After I got it fired up.. it runs nice and smooth. I engaged the main hydraulics and it blows the main line. I take it off and make up a 3/4 hose, put it on and then one of my crimps let go and blew off the line. Redid that end and the hydraulics come back to life. Raise the front end up with the out riggers and fix the flat tire. I then drive it to where I have a plasma cutter and Welder and figure out where I left off.
So i decided to mount the drill motor. I want to see if it has enough hydraulic power to actually drill a hole. In order to do this I needed to build a coupler and slice a drill rod in half to make connections to my auger bit. So I come up with some more junk laying around and weld it up.. I finally have a auger hanging off the motor. I did not build a bearing assembly that would prevent pressure from pushing up on the gear reduction from the bottom. I am up in the air on that and that will take at least 2 days to figure out. My test hole went OK. I need to change up a few hydraulic lever controls. I need it to turn and move down and the same time. The motor spins slow. As in about a 1/3 speed of what i would prefer. The machine has enough down pressure to pick the whole front end up in air. The motor does not stop spinning so the gear reduction must be a lot. So it passes the "will it dig test" but I ran into several problems. The first problem is it pretzeled the 5/8 shear pin i put in the coupler. I was thinking it could shear if it bound up. It is not even close to strong enough. I switch that out to a hardened 7/8s bolt. To do this I had to take everything apart and redrill the holes with the mill. The next issue i ran into is the tapered drill rods locked together so tight it took Me 2 hours to get them back apart. A 4' pipe wrench and 1000 lbs table and vice was not enough. I had to lock it down in the back of a forklift counter weight and use an excavator to push on the wrench. I quickly came to realize that unscrewing the drill rods is a problem that I cant handle without some mechanical advantage. I have been unsure of how to accomplish this task. Because there are 3 factors that need to be addressed. The lower drill rod needs to be held in place and supported so that it can not fall into the hole, it also needs to be locked down so that it does not spin. The middle drill rod needs to be unscrewed at the top side which will be 10' in the air and it needs to unscrew from the lower drill rod. After much thought I decided to build a barn door style table that could clamp and hold the lower rod. Then I decided to put hydraulics on a pipe wrench to be able to break the upper connection. If your paying attention you will notice the wrench is up sidedown that tightens the connections... The problem I have now is the drill stem connection which is 10' up in the air. Depending on which joint is the tightest, using the drill motor to unscrew the connections, the weaker connection will let go first. This could be the one at the motor or the connection at the table. If it lets go at the motor first I must unscrew the rod by hand which pisses me off because I wanted to use the motor hydraulics. I have not worked through this issue yet. I also need to figure out how to clean up the hoses. The machine has 20 different hydraulic functions so hoses are everywhere. Left out rigger up / down Right out rigger up/ down Hydraulic winch in/ out Mast tilt up /down Motor up / down Drill direction left/ right Hydraulic wrench in /out Push blade up / down Push blade tilt left /right Push blade angle left / right Last picture is some photos of some different pipe hold ideas i was looking at.
Oilfield does it with slips to keep you from losing the string downhole and a pair of tongs that make and break the connection. Not sure you'd benefit from spinning chains, but maybe. And I'd say you'd benefit from some thrust bearing setup. The entire string weight will be on the BHA and will be hard to guage, so the torque on the bit be guessing.
Thanks Tony, do you have any pictures of slips and tongs? I did a Google search on the tongs. It pulled up some impressive gear. Out of my price range. Maybe i could come up with a simpler design.
There are a few versions of slips, so you could adapt the concept to fit your application. Here's a couple of references: Five commonly used wellhead tools-slip 2.0 Slips The slips is a tool used to hold and suspend the drill string in the well during the drilling process. The slip is mainly composed of the slip body, goldenman.com Drill pipe slips, DU series slips, Drill Collar Slips, Casing Slips, PS Series Pneumatic Slip, Safety Clamps Type MP, Safety Clampfor sale_Jereh Global Development LLC All rotary slips provided are API 7K certified. Drill pipe slips are used to accommodate drill pipe from 2.3/8 www.jereh-oilfield.com Tongs: Manual tong for sale, manual tong in oil drilling_Jereh Global Development LLC Jereh Manual tong with API7K standard. Manual tong is an essential tool in oil drilling operation to fasten or remove the screws of drill pipe and casing joint or coupling. www.jereh-oilfield.com Keep in mind those are considerably larger and thus heavier that you probably need. The idea and how they work you could use. Those tongs are suspended from above, and wrap around the pipe or collar....tool, whatever, and are pulled in whatever direction needed to tighten or loosen the connection. They are used in pairs. One is anchored to the structure, the other is pulled by drawworks but could be powered by a cylinder. I would think though, that you could combine a slip function, which normally is just tossed around the string and is tapered on the outside so that when the string weight is let down, there is a mating socket that pinches it around the pipe. If that were properly fixed to not rotate, that would sub for one tong. Once you are reconnected, just raise the string and the taper releases. Pull the slips out of the socket and toss aside until needed again. Another idea to borrow might be from the sucker rod used in a well. The connections actually have wrench flats and are made/broken by good strong hands. Pipe like you have would be tighter so probably too much by hand, but borrow the idea of wrench flats and get away from tongs and pipe wrenches.
Come take whatever parts you want, Doyon 26 is getting scrapped.
Isn't that the one they laid over while moving it? Its 20 years old or so and ran about $800 million to build. That crawler crane on the right looks like a old 4100 or 4600, that's old school horsepower.
Yeah. I believe the salvage is done.
Slips are similar to the Clamps used to squeeze Hose Fitting, Tapered Collet into a Tapered Hole. The Wrenches are far and above some MEAN Hardware as to grip yet release easily. Also No TEEFs Damage as with a Pipe Wrench. Drill Rig Boys are a Breed all to their own!!! As to Auger Drive, Set it up on a Hex Drive, all the HP on the Hyd Motor will destroy Boxcar Loads of Shear pins, No Need with the Hydraulics to Drag it back out of the Hole as needed, as well have Reverse do not have on a PTO.
I'm confused because all the drill steels in that size range that i've worked with had a flattened section next to the threads where a wrench would fit onto and lock on the steel. We also had problems with the steels locking in the collars when the ends of the steels were not ground square, and the bevels on the ends were not truly round or the threads on the steels were worn out. Changing steels was only done on the bottom of the mast. We did at times have problems where the drill steel unscrewed out of the driver with the drive up in the air. Then you climbed the mast and hauled up a big pipe wrench with a rope and moved things back line and screwed the steel back into the upper collar. We also had collars explode when using steels with worn out threads. I did have to take care of a blast hole drill at one time with eight inch steels and running trio-cone and drag bits. Those really suck when the steels get stuck on the collars but the drill had provision for it.
These guys let me look at their rig two summers ago. Might have something here worth gleaming. Looks like they modified the rod to have ears that get captured by a folding gate. I do not know how they held the string on the trip out. They said they go 200' on some wells. Very nice aluminum mud recycling pan. Disregard the lack of steel toes, this is in a coastal region lol
I repurposed some used ditch witch type horizontal drill stem. It has had a lot of prior use. The pipe is 1.75 inches except on each end where it was spilt and the female and male ends were welded in. I did see some stems like you were talking about. I have been studying water well drilling for a while now. I have seen people weld on some square bar on each female end, one small piece each side so that the hanging rod will lock into a notch on the barn door table. this allows you to break the connection with the auger motor and add another piece of drill rod. I came up with wrench idea watching a commercial water well drill rig on youtube. They cut the handle short on their wrench, and they used it at the bottom to break the top connection loose on their 20' drill stems. The half wrench was mounted to a cylinder. The professional rigs also have a swinging revolver barrel that sits off to the side that holds 6 or 8 pipes vertically. A hydraulic cylinder swings the unit in and out to add and remove pipe. And finally, I saw a center cylinder on the table which would push/pinch and hold the drill stem to allow the wrench to work. I am using a table instead of another cylinder. I really dont have room to add it. The wrench works well under my testing. You can use the hydraulics to loosen or tighten the wrench as needed and it is almost weightless to swing into position. I spent another day building supports that will lock the bottom of the mast to the frame of the machine. The mast supports use a left and right hand threaded end and you can spin the center section to loosen or tighten the bars. I also built a 2nd set of barn doors that will be setup just for my casing size. This brings me to my final 2 items. I need to clean up the hydraulic hoses and I am thinking that I will cut the drill stem apart near the motor and go ahead and add a "thrust support of some type". Then I will being testing and building the air lift mud pump assembly and on then on to drilling my well. I also called and inquired about a down the hole hammer. I dont see that working out. The expense is a lot and my pipe will not carry enough air, most use a 2.5" pipe or bigger and 500 cfm. If I hit hard rock more than likely I am going to not make it threw it. I could try to use a cable and drop a heavy rod over and over in the same place. Hoping for no rock.
That is a nice mud pan. Thanks for sharing. Those ends are what I was talking about above.
I made an error in my math here. The machine also has hydraulic steering on both the front and rear axle. This is done with a hydrulic steering gear. For a total of 24 different hydraulic functions.
What is the hole size? Just so happens I have (in the past) developed various hammers that are meant to be used in coil tubing work. I have some left over prototypes that you might be able to use. Likely have to make up some adapter subs to thread it all together, but they may be useful to you. They will drill rock. Carbide inserts, buttons, or a nickel/carbide matrix. They are meant to run on either nitrogen or air. How much air you have available?
I am planning on a 9" hole. I have a 6 cylinder diesel that produces 500 cfm. I am not sure of the cfm i would have. According to chat using a 1" pipe it would have 100 cfm to 150 cfm. The drill stem hole might be 1 1/4. According to local drill reports I will hit sandstone at 63' for approximately 6 to 8' thickness. The local guy I went and visited had a rack full of worn out hardened heads that had carbide inserts welded to cutting heads. He stated they used to grind through the sandstone in the past, said the process was slow. Now with there newer drilling equipment they hammer through.
I worked at a coal mine where the blast hole drill was. We were drilling eight inch holes forty to eighty feet deep and started using try-cone bits that cost around $2,800 each. That wasn't cost effective as the bit was only good 50 to 100 holes and then it had to be replaced. The holes started in glacial till and hit white sandstone. We changed to the drag bits as the carrier cost about $500 as I recall and the inserts were less that $100 apiece. As I recall we were getting up to 15,000 foot of holes on one carrier. That was cost effective at that time. Later on we excavated the till with dozers and loaders and then just drilled the sandstone. The drag bits were great when working in solid rock. The drill worked on down force and rotation. We didn't have a drifter for it and didn't need one for the material we were working in.
The largest hammer I built was 4 1/2", so my motors and bits may be no use to you. The general idea was to stay small then scale up. It never went up to your size. It started with 2 1/8" hole size. There is a lot of smaller work and a great demand for the smaller rotary motors and bits in remedial work and simple paraffin cleanouts in gas wells. I did turbine driven rotary motors and reciprocating hammers for drilling, and a few wild variations that didn't prove out. I have done just the bit work for SII and RBI on bits up to 36", but I'm not equipped these days for that, nor do I own those designs.
Here is the type of soil I will be boring in. As it sits in the heat and dry's it turns almost into a brick. I was testing my auger out and I did this. I have 2 of the same augers. 9". The one on the right is about the right factory angle to cut. The one on the left you can see the 1/2" steel bent and the teeth will not cut. I brought the bit back to the shop to compare it to the other one. I used a torch and heated the steel and got it close to being bent back out. I am not 100% sure that I did this to the bit or if someone that I let borrow the skid steer did it. It was caked in dirt and I did not bother to clean the cutting edges off. I just noticed that I was having a hard time drilling a hole. I was surprised to see the teeth bent back like this . I have never experienced this before.
Only tome saw that on my 3 pt auger was on a Buried stump, took a lot to get it unwound off that.
There had to be a lot of pressure to bend those bits back like that. Big rock maybe? When I drilled post holes and hit roots or old stumps it just stopped the auger. Maybe you could weld a T like brace on the back to strengthen the tips.
I decided to go ahead and add a drill rod thrust support. I am going to use a sealed front wheel bearing from a f250 4 x 4. According to what I have found online they can handle both radial and axial loads in excess of 10,000 lbs. In order to install this bearing assembly I needed to tightin up my tolerances. So I began by removing the drill rod attachment I made and starting over on assembly. The main issue i have had is attaching the drill rod to the drive gear with out using heat and ruining the seals. I came up with a clamp type system that is bolted to the gear. The wheel bearing will be used in between the clamp and the drill rod. It will be permanently mounted to the drill motor metal support carrier. I attempted several different variations including using an old f250 steel wheel as a mounting bracket. Wasted a fair amount of time building junk into more junk. The pieces of my clamp was worn out and uneven, it came from an 850 john deere dozer blade that was very well used. I first cut it fairly close to length with a plasma cutter and hand grinder. Then I decided to set it up in the lathe and cut it straight. This was a fairly scary thing to do. It is not a balanced part and the lathe was jumping off the concrete floor. Probably would have got an F in machine shop class for this. The clamp weighs about 30 lbs.
Another photo of it in the lathe. The clamp is bigger than the chuck... The part came out straight and was easy to weld a center support plate too. The little metal hanger left sticking up is how much I machined it down. Don't pay attention to the old slag around the base. That from the previous connection pieces I cut off. I welded in a 1/2 steel plated that is only attached to one side of the clamp. I could tack weld it to the other side if neccessary later. This will allow me to weld under the drive gear with out burning up my seals. I also machined or faced off the end of the the drill pipe. It all sits straight now.
Today was a big day for me. Everything finally clicked in my mind and I figured out how to install the wheel hub inline. The main thing I was having a hard time figuring out was this. How can I still make the drill bit removable if I break something. Making the assembly permanent was easy to see. Keeping in mind that I dont want to cook the wheel bearings with the welder. There is a lot going on under the drill that needs close alignment. The clamp had to be made true and flat. The wheel bearing holder had to be flat and even in height. The drill stem attachment point had to be perfectly centered and facing straight down and the n the bearing support needed perfectly lined up so that it all spins true without any additional machining. The drill stem needs to be able to be slid in and out for repair if needed. Every weld attempted to pull something out of place. The whole assembly weighs about 350 lbs so it is a pia to move around in to proper welding position. Here is what i came up with. Final welding has yet to be finished. I have been called away back to another major grading project. I did get the hydraulics hooked and I tested my alignment. If i had a bigger lathe I would have just bought a few bearings and machined the support from a 4" blank. But i used what I had laying around. I know its not pretty and some of you guys are probably not impressed. I am after the end result and time is short. Paint and primer probably ain't happening!
Here is a video of the speed of the hydraulic motor with the diesel engine on low idle. This video also shows everything is aligned with the thrust bearing support and the hydraulic drive motor. It took me a lot of work to get all that aligned right. But I got it!
Earlier in the week, I picked up some 20' schedule 40 casing and it is heavy. I want to be able to do this with just one man (as in just me) if necessary. That means the winch is very important for me. After playing around with the pipe I decided I would make one final modification to this rig. I want my motor assembly to be able to swing out of the way of the hole so that I have a straight shot down from the winch fair lead. I also figured out that the fairlead is not tall enough at 25' up. Adding the table with the barn doors and the bell coupling sizes make me need the fair lead about 2' higher up. Dam it! Today, I woke up full of energy. After thinking about this issue, I figured out a way to make everything more compact, and it is going to be better. Like version #2. Drill assembly taken apart. Hydraulic motor removed. And a before picture of the carrier. Cutting the carrier apart. And a new set of hinges I cleaned up on the lathe. So my plan is to move the plate I cut off lower and then hinge the motor assembly off the plate. This will allow me to swing the drill assembly completely out of the way once I am setting casing. I also want to make sure the hydraulic lift cylinder stays completely closed with the motor is in the down position. This will protect the cylinder in storage. Right now it is up about 2' due to the table I added.
IF ANY OF YOU GUYS HAVE A TRICONE ROLLER BIT USED, THAT IS COLLECTING DUST I AM IN NEED OF IT ! I am looking for a 9" roller bit. I would happily pay shipping for it. Send me a message if you can help me. Thanks.
Today, I woke up full of energy. After thinking about this issue, I figured out a way to make everything more compact, and it is going to be better. Like version #2. I have not woke up full of energy in years. Looks awesome amazing. Best of luck.
Happy Memorial day. Today we remember and honor our fallen Heros and their family's sacrifices for our country. I send my thanks out to you. I missed my mark . Right of center. I spent yesterday building the unit and half of today reworking my mistake on the drill carrier. I attempted to find the correct center line but managed to miss the mark by 1" 1/8. I did not figure it out until I had it all hard mounted back in place. Of course I had poured about 16 7018 rods to the hinge bushings with a quadruple pass before I mounted the carrier. My options were to leave or redo it. Today I cut it back apart with a gas axe, then smoothed it out with a plasma torch and finally cleaned it with a large hand grinder. Then I welded the heck out of it. Something else will break before this does. The carrier swings complety out of the way easly, it is ridged and seems like it is heavy duty. Getting closer. I am getting down to my final details before a real world test. The carrier sits out 3/4s of an inch so I will need to redo the clamp on the doors. I need to make the second set of doors precisely fit my casing size. I need to explore raising the winch fairlead a few more feet... I have put every trick I have seen into the rig except a water swivel with pump and an air hammer for rock. My only 2 options for rock would be using a 700lb dead weight and using the drop method to bust rock if I hit some or a TRICONE roller bit.
My grandpa drilled water wells for 35 years. Bought a brand new Ingersoll TH60 in 1976 on a IH Paystar chassis. I will say with absolute certainty that you will not have the ability to punch a 9" hole through rock with your setup. Grandpa's rig weighed 60k on the wheels, the drill stems were 20' and weighed over 400 pounds each. I don't know how much pull down pressure they could apply, but I think it was close to 20k. This also was all forward rotary, drilling fluid was pushed down the stem to flush cuttings up the outside. I haven't read your whole thread, but you are going to need a pretty good mud pump to go down over 50', you need good circulation to keep things moving.
I am rolling the dice for sure. I am hoping there is not rock present, in this coastal plain. Especially doing a 9" hole. I probably will have a max of 3 to 4 k down pressure. The machine weighs about 12 to 14 k. The hydraulics will lift the front end off the ground easily. I know there is sandstone i just dont know how hard. The well company down there has a 5 gallon bucket of worn out drag bits. As far as time amd cost goes I am about at my limit with stepping up in technology. Truthfully this has taken far more work than I thought. It seemed simple but then lots of extra time spent redoing and changing things. As to the mud pump. I have heard of far too many failures using a semi or full trash pump trying to push cuttings up out of the hole. Not even going to try it. I plan to suck the cuttings out using compressed air and pvc pipe.
Today I finished my casing clamp. I started by machining a piece of flat plate to the size of the casing. I then heat forged a piece of rectangular bar around my die for a precise fit. Cut the hole with my plasma torch. I got a nice tight fit.
I think it is finally ready to use. I found well pack, screen and full length casing 20'. I tested the table and the casing length to make sure it will work with out extending the winch fair lead higher up. It clears with about 3" of space. Very happy to see my hydraulic winch setup is going to work out how I wanted. Actually very easy to use. In order to release the barn door clamp type hold the winch assembly must raise the pipe about 4" for the door to open upwards. I just have room for that once the pipe is assembled. Full length casing with lower bell coupling in position. Just enough room set in easily. Drill motor swung out of the way so I dont need to wrestle the casing. Winch fair lead and simple strap hold on casing. Bell end keeps it from sliding off. I am pretty sure I could use hydraulics to push down on the casing with the motor swung back in if needed.
when are you going to drill?
I am close to attempting it. I went ahead and arranged for a professional to do the work if this project does not work out. They are almost 3 months out on the schedule; he knows what I am up to and offered to just do the hole for me if I can't make it through the sandstone. I am looking for an affordable anti-seize to put on the drill threads something like copper coat. The gallon buckets are expensive. I was wondering if grease might work. Finally, everything has to be transported to the site. That will take at least 2 days of driving with multiple trips. I need to build a water holding pond and get a good supply of water on hand and the air compressor ready to air lift the cuttings from the hole. The well screen was 500.00, the casing was $1000.00, (I got the casing at wholesale pricing do to having a contractor friend that buys a lot of pipe, it was half of what they wanted at most places), the well pack (gravel / 40 bags) was $500.00, hole plug was $250.00, grout and cement will be at least another $250.00. Hard to believe you could get a complete well done in the early 80s including a pump and pressure tank for $1750.00
Two wells done here 12 years apart. Basic well and support equipment only around $3k difference. Two different contractors as first one did not set livestock waterer.
Grandpa always used grease on the threads, just plain old lithium.
Jet-Lube Kopr-Kote. Realistically, you won't get up to the thread loading point where it will make a lot of difference, but if you were to snag something down hole, you could damage the bit threads or bottom sub. If you go with grease, make sure it has an EP additive. Rig looks pretty good.
I got everything to the site 2 weekends ago. I unloaded the machine and just as soon as I raised the mast, I snapped the winch line. It got bound up at the top and I did not see it and it snapped as I was lowering the drill head. It had such a nice end on the line... I used my loader and leveled my area, ran a 150' of electrical line 8 wire to run the compressor, dug my holding pond and had everything set up to go for this past Saturday. We started filling the holding tank with water and then began removing the first ten feet of dirt by letting the auger fill up and pulling it back up and knocking the dirt off on a piece of metal. The air lift pump does not work well until you have about 10' of water standing above the airline. We used 1" 1/4 pipe with a 1/4" airline. Maybe 30 or 40 % efficiency at 10'. I ran into a few issues that I was able to address. Having a lot of spirals on the auger head was not good. The mud would pack tight by the time it was getting to the top. I took a torch and cut it off all the way down to the last 2 spirals. The airline needs to be about a foot from the bottom of the suction pipe and it is best to sharpen the pipe so you can break up heavy clay if you have it. The smaller air bubbles you get the more lift you get. I cut a window screen and had the air blow threw that, to break the bubbles up. The closer to the top of the bit the air lift pipe stays the faster the cuttings are removed and that keeps the bit clear. By lunch time we hit 24' deep. At that depth the strength of the air pump is a bit scary. It builds pressure then blows water. It will blow it 30' out of the pipe, mud, sand, pebbles and all. According to chat gpt i had a 93 % efficiency going based on my cfm, suction pipe size and depth of the hole. The deeper the pipe goes into the water the stronger it gets. We broke for lunch and I thought man this is hauling ass, i might have a chance. Once the airlift was dialed in it cleared the hole as fast as we went down.
Good progress. Huge learning curve. Stuff I have never considered. Best of luck going deeper.
When we came back from lunch the problems really began. I blew a hydraulic hose, then repaired that. Then I could not get the airlift to run correctly. After 30 minutes of messing with it we pulled it up. It had clogged with river pebbles. I removed the hose from sticking up inside the pipe and placed an elbow on the outside of the pipe and melted into the pipe by heating the fitting up. I wired it tight then taped it up. This gave me the full pipe size to bring gravel up. The airlift went in to hyper mode then it would suck so hard that you could hear rocks hitting the top elbow and it was shooting them out. I actually thought it might crack the plastic. It is crazy to see how well they pull up mud and water. BUT the drilling progress was slowing down, the drill stem would bend if I pushed too hard and the auger head would not lift back out of the hole. I was being fairly careful and pulling back up every few feet as I went down just to check it. Then when I went to break the drill rods apart to add another piece, I used the hydraulic wrench, they had become so tight that it sounded like a gunshot when it let go. It snapped so hard that it broke the pin that holds on the lower jaw on the pipe wrench. It actually cracked a few welds on the wrench holder. Not good. So as I am lifting on the drill stem the entire back end of the machine comes off the ground. Even with both out riggers out and the blade stuck in the dirt and a block under the mast. I could reverse the bit and get it to come loose but you could tell that sandstone was working its way into the threads and holding the auger head and the hole size was shrinking. At the 30' mark, I needed to add another drill rod. I put my back up wrench on the pipe and it started to bend when I locked it into the mast using the hydraulic motor to reverse the drill rod. I made sure i was out of the way of an exploding wrench and kept going. This time the rod would not break apart, and it twisted the drill pipe into near the motor. That was game over. I had no way to take the drill rods apart. I used a chain and pulled up the drill string. I could not break any of the drill rods apart with the tooling I had available so out comes the cutting torch. I did a bit of research on chat gpt, I have about a 60 rpm speed with an extreme amount of torque because of the motor I used. It is telling me the drill stems are cold welding together. I used the air lift to clear the hole of water. Prefectly cut bore hole 30' straight down. You could see a sandstone rim shrinking the hole size at the bottom. I did not see a vain of river gravel that we went through. The pebbles might have just been here and there and dropped to the bottom as the mud and sand was sucked out. 30' for my first try seemed pretty good. To be continued...
Awesome!
Could you put some kind of washer type deal berween the connections so they can't fully thread all the way up against each other? Maybe even a hard steel and if the joints got stuck just torch the washer out leaving the 2 pieces separated 1/4-3/8" and easy to unthread.
I haven't been following this thread, but I do know a fair bit about drill stem. Most drill stem uses a tapered thread that seals either on the end of the pin, or the face of the box. There is one special joint that seals on both, but it is only used in high pressure, high strength applications. The proper pipe made up with the proper pipe dope prevents thread galling in a drilling operation. @Georgia Iron , are you doping your threads before you make up the connection? Copper Kote, or equivalent is needed in drilling operations to properly lube the joint and keep them from galling together. Stainless Steel, Monel and Inconel pipe are notorious for galling together, but any steel pipe can do it. The drill stem you're using should have a higher make up torque than the torque required to bore through your formation. If not, you're asking for problems.