Updated my homepage

A slight bit larger at 12" x 7" than my Gardner Denver at 2" x 2 1/2". Of course, my 1/2 HP motor probably wouldn't even turn it with the unloader open. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Enjoy your site....keep up the good work.

xman

Sorry. I try to keep a balance of picture size and clarity but it's hard to do. I remember the dial up days myself though it has been a year since I've been on it.

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

LOL. Yes it's a bit larger than mine as well. If you'll look elsewhere on my site you'll see pics of mine with 6"x4" first stage if I remember correctly. :-)

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

Thanks. Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

Interesting pictures. Is that a dirt floor? How do you clean up the metal chips?

I like to use reduced size pictures on the page with a link to a larger version for those interested. Like this:

Ron Thompson On the Beautiful Florida Space Coast, right beside the Kennedy Space Center, USA

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.

--Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

That's what I wanted to do at the outset. Unfortunately it never seems that I have the time to set it up. I barely manage to make any updates as it is. The only reason I managed a update this weekend was because I was sick and didn't have enough energy to get out in the shop and work on the backlog.

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

Yes there's still a good bit of dirt floor left in my shop. It's down to a pretty small percentage now actually. Over half of it has either been full concreted or has at least had some portland added to the dirt to harden it up some. That's why there's a sack of portland behind the mill next to the stove. I've been going to add it to the dirt there but I've not had a chance yet.

As for the chips well with a dirt floor you don't worry as much about them. But most of them get picked up with a magnet pickup tool I built a long time ago. It's a pair of magnets out of a old 5 1/4" full height hard drive inside a old aluminum camping pot with handle and release mechanism. Works pretty well though it would be nice if it was bigger sometimes.

Wayne Cook Shamrock, TX

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?

No need me wasting words. This page describes it better.

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

I've made "sand pumps" All I did was place a large steel ball in the pipe and welded a washer to the end where the ball can seat. A small rod is welded across the pipe to limit ball travel. To use the sand pump you just jog it up and down in the well pipe. The sand pump fills with sand and you pull it up and pour it out. If your digging a well and you hit sand there will be water there in most cases.

Thanks, Andy for the book link on early oil drilling. It answered a lot of qustions.