well-drilling with PTO??? anybody?

[smiley]

We dug a well this week and had major cave in problems. at about 16 ft we appeared to have about 3 ft of water in bony gravel and decided to drop in the 2 ft dia concrete pipe casing. while setting the second pipe we had a major collapse that trapped and partly filled the first pipe. We added the 3rd pipe and backfilled what hadn't already caved in. Unfortunately, when I pumped it, we have less than a foot of water, so I'll have to deepen it either with an auger, long handled spoon shovel, lever operated clam shovel or drive a point. We'll try driving a point first as it's the easiest and we're already at the water table.

I'm just throwing this out for consideration as I won't need to try it because I shouldn't have to drive it over 5 or 6 ft and have access to an air powered post driver if necessary.

While researching and thinking about point driving, everyone that drives wells by hand comments about the huge amount of labor involved in picking up and dropping the drive hammer/weight on the casing. Some people run a rope attached to the hammer, through a pulley on a tripod over the well to pull up and drop the weight by hand. So I got thinking, if you rigged up a large spool on the outside of a rear tractor tire rim, then jack up the tractor on that side and block the tire off the ground, run the rope under the spool and snub it possibly to the front axle or other immovable object, then when the tire rotated, you'd have an up and down action very similar to the old cable well drillers. You'd just have to pay out rope as the casing went down and be 100% certain that the rope couldn't snag on a tire lug or something and wind the rope, tripod, hammer and all around the wheel.
Just a thought but might be worth trying.
Smiley

 

[daveyb45]

I drove a 1 1/2 inch drive point 25 ft by hand. Used a custom built driver, weighted fence post design, about 90 pounds total weight. Each time I hit the pipe I would turn it (pipe) with a large pipe wrench half a turn. This prevented it from getting stuck and helped with going thru what seemed like rock. The first 5 feet was nothing,,,then the hard stuff, hard pan, 15 feet of this took what seemed like forever, once thru it was sand. Hit the pipe once and it would go down a foot unlike earlier it was about a 1/8 inch with each hit.
I have had good water with no problems for 10 years. This last winter my power was out in a severe cold snap. The well pump froze and busted. A few faucets cracked but nothing else major. Funny thing was the extra water I had in the crawl space did not freeze. I replaced the pump and since have not had as good a recovery time. I have added a second pressure tank and also placed the pump in the crawl space which is 3 feet lower hoping to help with less lift from the point. I have not checked the well pipe connection yet which is 20 feet away from the pump. I am thinking it may have froze and has a small air leak. That will be the last thing before I start on drilling or driving a new well. I might also back flush the point while I am checking the fittings at the well.
Anyways after this long winded rant, Yes it is a lot of work but I enjoy the satisfaction of learning something new and sometimes saving a buck or two.

 

[BHD]

Sand Points Well Drilling

 

[Baby Grand]

BHD -

Thanks for posting the Borzit link. That might just do for a well that The Plant Manager wants. We have varved clay that runs I don't know how deep under a top layer of about 18" of sandy loam. We're in the valley of nearby river (about 1/10 mile from our house), so the water table should be fairly easy to reach. I also need to run two pipes horizontally, and this looks good for that, too.

-Jim

 

[BHD]

there is what is called a Cable rig, or "spudder rig"

and they use a "baler" to remove the spoiles from the hole you may want to adapt it to clean out the hole,

some links to cable drilling,

http://www.consallen.com/Why-cable-percussion.pdf

Borehole drilling rig for water wells (cable tool percussion method), pile & probe driving, site investigation, workover, geothermal, prospecting, environmental, peizometers, remediation & geotechnical.

Wellspring Africa
there book is worth the $10 IMO and it goes to a good cause if nothing else.
plans on how to make the tools,

here is URl with some basic Ideas
http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/energy/water/paper/drinkingwater/wellsconstruction/rnpmethods.html

some have made small rigs that basicly use a capstan spool that one jsut tighens the rope to raise, and releases it to drop the tools, for a min rig,

YouTube - Cable tool Drilling Method

 

[Baby Grand]

BHD-

That's a great collection of information! It's going to take me a while to dig thru it all - but after spending about an hour I am getting a good idea of just how little I know and how important doing some more research is going to be to my success. When I was about 5 or 6 I remember watching a gentleman using a cable rig/capstan set-up mounted on the back of a truck drill a well for our landlord. It had a long, maybe 8' section of 6" pipe. Up, down, up, down. Periodically he'd hoist it out of the hole, do something with the pipe and go back to up, down, up, down. He worked drilling for a day or two and then spent another day fitting it up with a pump and made a little well house over it. Now I have a much better idea of what he was actually doing, thanks to you.

Jim

 

[BHD]

here is a small home made spudder from a riding lawn mower
pictures in the Url near the bottom of the URL,
VintageWindmillParts.com • View topic - Working windmill

I do not think it winches any thing, I think all it provides is the lifting and dropping of the tools,

the pulley attached to the large pulley catches the rope that the tools are on, and it swings thus dropping the tool string a few feet, and then comes around again catching and then it over centers and drops it again, If I under stand it correctly,

I the guy drilled his shallow well with it that the mill is over in the fist picture, if you read a lot of it was throught rock,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ edited

I missed it the first look I see a capstan spool on the axle where the drive for the crank is, to winch with,

 

[Baby Grand]

Love the vintage windmill site - I'm bookmarking that one for future study. The drill rig looks very complicated, but from his description it sounds downright simple and the action sound exactly like the rig I watched as a young lad. Slow lift of the drill string, then a quick release and dropping of the tool to the bottom of the bore, then another slow lift and so on. I seem to recall the thing going thud, thud, thud, at roughly one second intervals.

It seems to me that a 4 bar linkage might work nicely to produce the smooth draw-up followed by the trip action. It could also make for a simple and easy to build/maintain rig.

The photos of the two drill bits are very helpful, too. I have to keep reminding myself that this stuff should be kind of crude and not overworked or over designed. Simple, modified from found materials.

Thanks again for the information - I'm getting more confident about doing this myself. I promise I'll take pictures of the rig and post them whenever I get the scrap together to start work.

-Jim

 

[BHD]

found another version of a mini cable machine,
mhtml:http://waterforallinternational.org/Documents/WFA Bolivian Baptist Drilling System.mht!WFABolivianBaptistDrillingSystem_files/frame.htm
YouTube - Motorized Water Well Drilling Promo
(if one would put the swinging pulley arm as from the one of vintage windmills one can see it would drop the bit harder),
if you look at the other slides they have a little different approach to the bits,
not exactly the same unit but similar, but it show it working,
YouTube - Baptist Well Drilling: motorized
if you look at other of the Baptist well videos there is a lot of other info and tips,
YouTube - Constructing a Drill Bit for Water Well Drilling Using the Baptist Method
different source but same concept,

here is one more and it uses the swing type arm to trip,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXAS0UUc7Ek&NR=1

 

[Baby Grand]

Even more ways to skin a cat!
Thanks for the links.
-Jim