Drill baby drill!(Directionally, HDD content)

[Fixastuff]

I added this horizontal directional drill to my fleet. It's an older unit but has been gone through and works well. This was a 70ft shot I did with my employee and the dude I bought it from showing us how to operate it. The next day we did a 325ft bore without any guidance and it went perfect. Went about 8ft deep at one point to dodge a sewer line.

Very excited about it. I have more drilling to do but had to take the machine home to do some adjustments on the pipe loading system. It holds 40 10ft pipe segments so you can drill about 380-390ft with it. It can backream up to a 26" diameter hole which is pretty crazy. Right now I'm just pulling one or sometimes two 2" diameter pieces of conduit.

It pumps in high pressure water during the operation so somethings things get muddy. (I've take off my boots at this point)

 

[dieselscout80]

Nice rig!!

If you don’t mind what kind of rate is it to bore a hole with one of those machines?

I have wondered if a horizontal boring machine would work to develop a spring on our place?

 

[Fixastuff]

Nice rig!!

If you don’t mind what kind of rate is it to bore a hole with one of those machines?

I have wondered if a horizontal boring machine would work to develop a spring on our place?

Sent you a pm.

 

[mrmikey]

Those machines fascinate me, not the actual machine per se but how you can aim it in elevation and lateral direction. Any chance you can give an explanation? I remember seeing a pic where one went off course and ended up going thru a car in a parking lot across the street.

 

[groundcover]

Ditch Witch ?

 

[dodge man]

The head of the unit has a sensor in it you can track from the service and it s kind of shaped like a ducks bill, bent some so to speak. It just spins to go straight and aims down to go deeper. If you want to go right you aim the bent duck right, so when you’re trying to change direction it doesn’t spin. Want to go straight just it just spins again.

 

[Fixastuff]

Yep thats how it works. This is the drill head. It had a sensor that gives you pitch, depth and clock of the drill head. 12 makes it go up, 3 to the right, 6 straight down and 9 to the left. It blasts out high pressure water or mud mix(to keep hole open)

 

[Smokeydog]

Cool stuff! The water company used one for their lines. Asked permission to come on my property to go under my rock wall and public road. Did put in a water service tap for the trouble if I ever needed city water. Hope whoever designed the machine made $$$ because it sure saves lots of digging.

 

[true temper]

My wife and I had drills for 17 years, that’s all we did for a living. Have a lot of stories to tell, they will make big money if you do it right. done really good and sold out a couple of years ago for a nice premium.

 

[Fixastuff]

My wife and I had drills for 17 years, that’s all we did for a living. Have a lot of stories to tell, they will make big money if you do it right. done really good and sold out a couple of years ago for a nice premium.

I'm going to send you a pm when I get some free time if it's OK.

 

[Fixastuff]

Broken shaft that wallered out the pulley when it stopped spinning. New kit with updated larger shaft, pulley, spacers and bearing 2468.09.

 

[mrmikey]

New kit with updated larger shaft, pulley, spacers and bearing 2468.09.

Ouch, that hurts.

 

[Fixastuff]

Ouch, that hurts.

The downtime is worse than the $, but at least they could still get it for me the machine is pretty old.

 

[true temper]

Sure send me a PM.

 

[klm]

So could this work to install a pipe in an existing pond dam ?

 

[MT Kioti]

Those machines fascinate me, not the actual machine per se but how you can aim it in elevation and lateral direction. Any chance you can give an explanation? I remember seeing a pic where one went off course and ended up going thru a car in a parking lot across the street.

Here's a great clip showing how they work:

 

[mrmikey]

Here's a great clip showing how they work:

Awesome video, should have thought to check his channel, he does some great videos.

 

[Bob in RVA]

I consider a drill like this to be based on magic, and operator skill.

 

[paulsharvey]

Ditchwitch JT 10, with manual load rods?

Edit: NVM, saw you said 10 ft rods, so more like an older version of the JT20? Or is this a Toro machine? Driller I know picked up a Toro demo unit for pretty cheap, think $170,000 for a 2024, with only a dozen or so hours. Same machine from Veermer is pushing, what, $400k, with tanks, trailer, ect.

 

[Fixastuff]

So could this work to install a pipe in an existing pond dam ?

Overflow pipe? I don't think it'd be right for that.

Ditchwitch JT 10, with manual load rods?

Bigger but older. Jt1720, auto rod loader, 10ft rods, 17k lbs of thrust vs 10k on the jt10. If I like this type if work(vs plowing and missiling) I'll use this one to make the $ to buy a newer better one if this unit has too many problems.