On Tue, 08 Feb 2005 21:02:30 GMT, Andy Asberry
wrote:

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 11:10:21 -0600, "Robert Swinney"
wrote:

Wayne,

Many thanks for the great trip through your shop! It is always enjoyable to
see pictures of a "real" shop. I esp. enjoyed seeing the crafty clamp-down
techniques you used on the Abene mill; good examples of extending the
usefulness and working range of machines. The large pix files from the old
Spang catalog were terrific! That is the first time I ever saw any detailed
descriptions of cable-tool drill bits. I have seen some old books on
cable-tool drilling but none of them ever showed any detail of the actual
bits. Interestingly, it seemed that cable tool drilling rigs had no
circulating "mud" to remove cuttings. Is this correct?

Bob Swinney

No need me wasting words. This page describes it better.
http://www.oilhistory.com/pages/String/bailer.html

Pretty good description except the part about a sand pump. At least
in this area every body calls the flapper style or California bailer
style valve as is shown in the last pic on my site a sand pump and the
other style are bailers. The thing about a sand pump is that you can
put it in the hole and pump it with the drill line so that it'll pull
sand up from the bottom of the hole into the fluid.

The dart style is preferred for most bailing when drilling since
it's easier to empty. The hole in the end of the dart is so they can
bolt a piece of metal on to set the depth that the valve is pushed
open on. I've made and repaired several of both style bottoms.

Cable tool rigs are still popular around here for reworking old
wells. There's a lot of old wells in this area which where drilled
with cable tool rigs back in the 20's and many of them are in bad
shape. They use the cable tool rigs to drill out salt bridges, deepen
holes, and generally clean them out.


Wayne Cook
Shamrock, TX
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/waynecook