Quote:
Originally Posted by mejunkhound
...Then a 62 house subdevelopment went in 500 ft uphill, so needed a deeper well. From well logs of others (check you state registers) knew I'd likely hit good abundant water at a blue clay layer about 60-70 ft down, but heeded to go thru 55 ft of hardpan with occasional 3 ft dia bassalt and granite boulders.
Tried a rotary setup first after welding up a 30 foot tower to bolt to the back of my dozer. Twisted the shaft off every trnsmission drive I tried when hitting a boulder (including a specially machined 2 in dia 4340 shaft as have a machine shop)
Went with the old cable tool standby, welded some 4140 steel to the end of a few 5 inch billets of steel (aka old railroad car axles) and hardfaced them. Built a walking beam out of some 8" channel and 3 old trucks, drove with the truck engine.
Biggest pump I have will pump 29 GPM, did that one august and pumped all day with no drop in delivery. Hit the blue clay right at 60 ft, 5 ft of sand above that.
'Only' took 5 months of spare time, but still have a rig if I need one again..<G>
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Bolders are always a problem. Cable tools are the grandaddy of the downhole hammer, so I'm guessing that they work fine if you are patient. How did you get the rock chips out of the boring?
Makes sense that the blue clay would seal off the water so it would accumulate in the sand layer. How did you keep the hole open/clean enough to build your well in the sand? Around here at that depth wet sand usually wants to heave and flow into your boring.
For what its worth a lot of drill rig transmissions share parts with commercial trucks (e.g. drivehead swivel=truck transmission U joint.) Unless you have your own junkyard and a lot a free time, it'd probably cheaper to hire a driller than to build your own rig.