Anybody have any experience with cable tool drilling? Am going to take a look at a rig with capabilities of 1000 ft. tomorrow. Someone with drilling experience would be a plus in a pinch! Don

-- Don (dairyagri@yahoo.com), September 22, 2000

Answers

Don where are you located ? ive spent many a miserable tower on the floor of a drilling rig. Bob in s.e. ks. ps when you go to drilling you will be a jar head. lol

-- Bob Condry (bobco@hit.net), September 23, 2000.

Don, I used to work on an air rotary water well rig. We occassionally had to use a cable tool, when the Water Master decided we hadn't adequately sealed the well. We had to take the cable tool and drill out to 22 feet all the way around the casing, and re-seal it. It was hard work!

The owner of the cable tool told me that the cable tool cost only five or ten bucks worth of fuel per day to operate, rather than 200 gallons of diesel for the air rotary. Also, much less expensive, cheaper parts, etc. Good way to go. The only drawback, as far as I know, is that it is SLOW! I once monitored the cuttings coming out of a hole that was being drilled for the phone company for an electrical ground. They went down almost two hundred feet, and were only making five or six feet per day while I was there, at the 17 foot level, more or less. They were in old river deposits, and the tool mostly just bounced up and down, without turning the rocks into mud, which is what has to happen to bail it out.

You should definitely do more investigation, unless you know for sure that your well will be going into suitable formations. One cable tool operator around here used to set up camp for weeks on each job. Still was price competitive, though, due to low operating costs!

JOJ

-- jumpoffjoe (jumpoffjoe@yahoo.com), September 23, 2000.

I'm located in SW MO where we have about 60ft overburden then solid limestone. Actually I have enough wells at present, but have odd hobbies I guess. I went and had a look at the rig yesterday and looks like transportation is second biggest problem. It's about 11 ft tall and will be too tall on my trailer. Derrick is not one that slides down into itself so protrudes so far as to make it hard to tow with a wrecker. The main problem is the owners family heard of his plans to sell and all have to have wells first! So I sort of chucked the idea. As to air-rotary, of course its the way to go, DTH equipment will do the job in a few hours what would take a month on the old stuff. But the time has an advantage for me in another way. Here in MO a new driller license applicant must have 1000 hrs experience. One can drill all the wells they want if they don't charge. I have been looking at some rotary rigs planning for the future, and you sure can't run those 1000 hrs for free! Don

-- Don (dairyagri@yahoo.com), September 24, 2000.