Are there no drillers here? I would be interested in reading from water well and geothermal drillers. Maybe that doesn't fall under heavy equipment? :beatsme I find deep down in the earth to be more fascinating then what lays on the surface is all. Very curious.
Always wondered that myself skagit, where they at? What you can't see in the ground does make your work interesting at times. Had a fellow once ask me at the beginning of a horizontal drilling job how long it would take me to complete the job. I said "it depends". He asked "how's that?" I replied "ask a carpenter how long it will take to build Y x Z house and he can pretty much tell you 'cause he can see what he's working with. What's in the ground is different, God built this mountain, I have no idea what he put in there." :tong
X3 I'm always interested in drilling stories
Well sat AT....Always remember dad telling people how hard it was to just go out on a project(without knowing the full story of whats under) and bid it. That is where rock clauses, and change orders come in. You never know what is underneath you until you dig right there. yes agree come on drillers!! Trbo
I do small dia rock drilling. And aslo do soil drilling for smaller casions.
Can't even find all my old drilling pics, but here's a thread I posted that has a couple of the horizontal drill rigs I used to operate installing horizontal drains to stablilize slopes that move from groundwater.
I don't drill but have seen others do it.............
drilling fits so many different categories .. maybe they should add a forum.. It could be for blasting... foundations... utilities .. or even as shoring... worked around all types ... the auger cast shoring wall is different... worked in and around a lot of the auger cast walls ... labors don't like them.. because they have to clean the round part out as you dig down... don't want any chunks of dried clay.. hit anyone in the head..
Glad you said blasting ,Remembered one more.
blasting I remember quite well... I'm sure I have mentioned it here before... But a gunship circling a trencher is a bit scary... moron set a stick of Tovex off .. above ground... probably a quarter mile from a Titan II Missile Silo... in an area where we couldn't blast... _______
A forum on drilling would be very interesting. Lots of threads/subforums possible under that: waterwell, blasting, dewatering, geo-testing, pole setting, pile installation, grouting, rockbolting, .... "Build it and they will come"
I have a few drilling 48" by ~30' holes for CMS sign foundations along Highway 280 between San Fransisco and San Jose. I was on the hoe and hauling between sites. We did 2 sites a day; bore, drop the cage and bolts in, have CHP shut the freeway down so the snorkel pump truck could pull a 3 point turn on the freeway, then pour while we were setting up at the next site. I also have some video which I might upload to youtube. This picture is right after the rig almost tipped over when an outrigger punched into the ground while trying to pick the cage up a bit further out. I had to use the hoe to get it closer. I happened to be running video when it started going... Ben~
I thought about measuring between the mast and the heavy power lines, but I didn't want to get as close as the mast was! (and that isn't as close as it got either)
And some more... A few weeks later (less than a week after we finished down there) there was a 1000' fireball right down the road when the San Bruno gas line exploded. (no, I was nowhere near it!) It was fun trying to keep the dirt off the freeway. Nobody had thought to bring any plywood, and when he would spin the auger to empty it, it would throw a few pieces over the K-rail. For some of it I would set my bucket on the top of the rail to try to deflect as much as possible. Caltrans seemed not to like gravel flying into 60+ mph traffic. It was great watching them hook the strap to the cage by shackling each end to a couple of the main vertical sticks. You know the way, where it is only the tie-wire and a little friction that is actually holding the weight? (~4k) If I was off the hoe helping I would at least wrap it so it looped both the vertical and the spiral. I don't know if that is proper rigging (any input?) but it was better than the other way! Another giant hole we bored... 36"x9' I got more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/benablackburn/HEF# Some I have posted, more I am going to post as I find the right spots, and I have a metric tonne more to upload still. I got Ritche Bros auction yard, SF Bay bridge shots including on the dock under the wimpy crane, paving, grinding, night work, equipment tie down how-to's and how-not-to's, lowboy and tilt bed loads and overloads, and cats (the furry kind.. ) Ben~
A video... YouTube - Boring 48" by 30' deep for CMS sign foundation
I have done some drilling for to install and inspect piers when I worked for a foundation company. We had a few dangle drills and our big one was mounted on a JD490. IIRC our big auger was 36" or so. I only had a week in the seat the first time a I had to lower an inspector down into a shaft I dug to inspect a pier. I was seating bullets and if the inspector know how green I was he would of been too. I only work there a couple months before I got the job offer that took me out to Socal.
I just was woundering your formwork for the drilled pier coming out of the ground is that a piece of sonotube or plywood to make the radius form?
it says tube on it , so my guess is sonotube.
Well... I may not be a driller, but since the original poster mentioned geothermal, I thought i should pipe in. I'm with a well logging company that works very closely with a drilling company, drilling high temp/high pressure geothermal wells, mostly directional drilling, both for domestic heating and electricity generation. The hottest well ever logged was over 385°C at a depth of 2800m.
it's hotter in f degrees 725 and deep almost 9200 feet I could use some of the heat right now... it in the 20'fs during the night here... but that's probably a heat wave in Iceland
There is a forum for HDD talk - check out www.HDDforums.com
try this one directional drilling forum
I agree, would like to see a drilling section in the forum. I have spent many years working in underground mines, and now work for a mining equipment manufacturing company. We have recently offered a line of excavator mounted hydraulic drills to the construction industry. We also do Montabert drifter conversions to any type of hydraulic jumbo drill. I will see what I can dig up for pics of drills in the underground environment. Our website has some good pictures of some of our underground drill rigs in addition to our CPA line of excavator drills. The CPA1100 excavator drill is actually a complete feed assembly from our jumbo line. Then there are our "longhole" track drills that ITH (in-the-hole) which have an air hammer head which stays at the bottom of the drill string. See website: www.mti.ca I will post some pics and descriptions of the types we use underground. I am very interested in learning about the several different types of surface drilling machines and applications, even though we dont manufacture or sell them.
Here is the CPA1100 drilling a rock outcropping. This can drill up to a 4.5" hole to 25' deep with the optional mechanized single rod adder. It uses a hydraulic Montabert drifter, which I have also heard referred to as a "tophammer" in surface applications. It is controlled by a radio remote from the cab of the excavator. The HC109 drifter is capable of drilling a 1 7/8"diameter- 12' deep hole in about a minute and a half in hard rock. http://i377.photobucket.com/albums/oo213/skidmark3/DSC00501.jpg This is our ITH track drill. It is an electric/ hydraulic machine which uses an in- the- hole air hammer. This particular machine has the rod carousel to add and remove the rods instead of manhandling them. Since it is used underground with limited headroom, the longest rods are only 6 footers. Because ther is no diesel engine, the machine would either get towed to location, or driven onto a transporter which can be picked with a fork lift, or loader with forks and carried to location. Once near an electric power source, it gets plugged in and driven to the drill area. These are production type drills. At the zinc mines, they used these to drill the ground out between levels, usually 80 to 100 feet, and they fire the whole sections, which then drop down to the lower level. They are capable of drilling up to a 8.5" diameter holes and about 1000' deep (downhole). Because of the dangers with uncontrolled high hanging (ceiling) in this type of mining, the lower areas get mucked out by radio remote controlled LHDs (mining lingo for load-haul-dump or a loader). Imagine a 6 yard capacity, remote controlled Tonka toy. Just like Tim the Toolman says... "Har, Har, Har... more power". http://i377.photobucket.com/albums/oo213/skidmark3/SR-360PIC.jpg
hey mark... we have a for sale section on our site if you'd like to post up some of your rigs for sale. hddforums.com
Thanks, Kmags, I will look into that. You dont mind drilling rigs listed other than HDD types?
Heck no. You can list a three legged dog for sale on there for all I care.
My wifes sister had a three legged dog, but I think he is long since dead. Not sure if anyone would be interested in the bones of a three legged dog, so I better stick to drills.
Here are couple pictures of underground jumbos. They are either diesel tram-electric/hydraulic or full diesel self contained. Normally they are just a single rod for a hole dpeth of up to 15'. A specific pattern is drilled into the "face" then loaed with explosives and fired. Note the adjustable height caonpy in the one picture. Generally during tramming the jumbo to different areas, the canopy is collapsed via a pair of cylinders to allow for accessing low headings. MSHA, which is our illustrious mine safety government agency has been constantly increasing stringent noise and emmissions regulations in underground mines, so open canopies are beocming a thing of the past, and climate controlled cabs are becoming the standard. Tier 3 diesel engines are now standard, with tier 4 on the horizon. Usually the standard bit size for face drilling is 1.75" to 2", with the cut holes being 2.75" or larger. A 45 to 60 hole round was typical at the zinc mines, and generally took about 1.5 minutes per hole to drill in hard rock. I recently visited a company that drills wollastonite, a fiberous type of rock. They are taking 8 to 12 minutes per hole using a GD MK65 jumbo. Apparently the fiberous structure must absorb much of the impact of the drifter, and is not easily broken. I do not have any actual mining pics any more, but will try to get some to share. http://i377.photobucket.com/albums/oo213/skidmark3/VR-II.jpg http://i377.photobucket.com/albums/oo213/skidmark3/RR-2MBwithcab.jpg
was on site Tuesday and the Geo well driller hit some sort of artesian well and flooded the site. even manged to get a transit mixer suck and leaning in the mud bog. A real **** show. Took two heavy wreckers to save the day