My long quest for water... A homemade well drilling rig. Have you ever done this?

[Georgia Iron]

Hello all, this will take me a bit to get this posted with several posts, I will do it as I have free time in the evenings.

If you have done this or have knowledge that you want to share on this adventure, jump on here and let us know how you did it.

So for 18 months or so I have been interested in having the ability to drill my own water well. I have some land and I want to be able to install a few solar pumps in different areas to keep my food plots watered. Some of it is close to groundwater or near existing water sources and does not need to go very deep.

On the property an old existing cabin well is 135' deep and is now too far from the new cabin site which is about 1000' or so away. I know this because I pulled the pump and replaced it. It was 41 years old.

As far as water well drilling goes I am green to this. I have never actually seen a well drilling rig up close nor have I been around when one is drilled. But I have watched every video I could find on drilling a well, sealing a well and installing casing. Online, I have seen some very neat simple machines.

That being said I am also interested in down the hole hammers and rock cutting bits. I have been thinking of ways to make my own bits. The tri-cone bit is very neat. I am going to drill into sandy type soil that is mixed with red clay. I don't believe I will hit rock but who knows. I have many options I could choose, to get a well. I am most interested in doing this myself.

Some options I have thought of:

A. Buy a tractor mounted pto drill.
B. Use a skid steer with an existing auger attachment / Build a derrick to mount on a skid steer.
C. Build a trailer mounted drill unit.
D. Use a dump truck with bed extender, a long cable and heavy steel drop a pipe, hit the same place over and over to make a hole as it goes down.
E. Pay someone. I will do this if my project fails.
F. Other

Looking through the options:

A. - A tractor mounted drill was not going to have enough flexibility nor weight carrying ability.

B. - I have a skid steer and looked hard at using it. I spoke to several people about it and got laughed at.
I wanted the rig to be portable and to be able to move into the woods and do its job. After much thought I decided that what I wanted would be more than a skid steer could do. The weight of the derreck, drill and drill rod and misc was going to be heavy. I also did not want to ruin the hydraulic system on the skid steer since I will more that likely not be able to keep it very clean. I also do not want to work on one. They are hard to get into the engine bay and a pain to work on.

C. - A trailer mounted rig is a great option. For me the power unit was the problem, I did not want to take the time to fab a diesel engine and fuel tank to a trailer to power the hydraulics.

D. - The dump truck option works and I saw guys in texas going deep with this setup. This could be a 2nd attempt.

E. - Not ready to call a professional just yet.

F. - I am looking.

On my rig project, I have decided that I want it to be able to do several things hydraulically.

1. Run a drill. Forward and backwards.
2. Run a winch. Up and down.
3. Power drill up and power down. I want up and down pressure.
4. Level the derrick left and right
5. Level the derrick front to back.
6. A hydraulic drill stem clamp.
7. The derrick must tilt so that the mast can lay down for travel.

That is a lot of functions.

In addition to that I also want

8. To use 2 6' long drill stems each time I add stem. So it will need 12+ feet of up and down travel.
9. To use existing materials I have around the yard. Things I have laying around, to build it....
10. I want to be able to install 20' runs of casing.

I will be building this rig on my OWN in my free time. I want to keep it simple..

My main area of concern is moving the drill cuttings out of the hole. Most big guys use hydraulic mud pumps which are high dollar. I have decided that I will not pay for one of those systems. I will not have enough horsepower available nor do I have access to a nice hydraulic mud pump.

to be continued...

​

 

[Delmer]

As far as I can tell, the simple DIY methods of drilling a well are:
1. driven sand point, requires a high water table and very sandy soil
2. water jetting, requires no rocks, and clayey soils
3. cable tool drilling, requires more equipment than the first two, or way more labor, but is capable of anything with enough time

Rotary well drilling or down the hole drills are not DIY

 

[DMiller]

Water drill rigs use a combination of high volume varied pressure air, water and drilling mud to expel cuttings, unless want to withdraw the drill at regular intervals not much else will function and will wedge drill head in bore hole in short order.

 

[redneckracin]

Cable tool rigs do not use a medium to flush the well. They bail out the cuttings as required. We had our water well drilled with this method several years ago. https://wellowner.org/resources/basics/drilling-methods/cable-tool/

pretty cool video and description here.

 

[Birken Vogt]

Do they just go in dry and bail out dry the first hundred or however many feet or does water need to be added to make the cuttings get into the bucket?

 

[TomA]

Just get one of those Deeprock rigs. Pretty affordable and use water pressure to flush out cuttings.

 

[redneckracin]

They have make up water to float the cuttings from what I understand. I personally have never ran one of those cable tool rigs. Fun Fact, a blind guy drilled my well with one....

 

[Georgia Iron]

Cable tool rigs do not use a medium to flush the well. They bail out the cuttings as required. We had our water well drilled with this method several years ago. https://wellowner.org/resources/basics/drilling-methods/cable-tool/

pretty cool video and description here.

That is an impressive rig.



Here is a interesting idea..

 

[Legdoc]

Over the last 7 years I have been piecing together a DIY drilling rig and I am about 75% there.
as follows:
1. Belltec hydraulic motor with hex drive. I have drilled hundreds of holes with it 3" to 24" diameter up to 12' deep. For power I use the FEL on the farm tractor, the CTL or the hoe on the TLB. All work great and being able to reverse is a must.
2. For drill string I have 210' of 2" pipe 7' length with rounded over threads on both ends with a collar on one end.
3. Swivel is a Lone Star with hex drive and adapted to the 2 3/8"- 8 round thread. It has a 1 1/4" water course.
4. Drill bit is a 3 wing carbide fish tail type and an accessory reamer.
5. Mud pump is a 3" Honda trash pump which is bigger than necessary but what I have.
6. Derrick is a old Hyster fork lift I was going to salvage the mast off and mount it on a trailer.

There are many DIY videos on YouTube which answers a lot of questions. Other than working your azz off with the small lawn mower or 2 man post hole power units there is a common problem. Circulation of drilling fluid. To minimize problems one must have enough pressure and volume of the mud to bring the cuttings to the surface. Otherwise the drill string will get stuck and the risk of loosing your pipe increases. Also the cuttings need to be brought up in reasonable time to allow examination to determine the strata you are in.

 

[DMiller]

Only really standout concern with a dry drill is locking the bit in the hole. Not a problem with shallow drilling but do fine until hit sand at 300' then lose a drill to collapse or just fall in or have hole collapse on drop bit and your done. Is a reason the regular drillers went to air/water and drill mud rigs.

 

[Georgia Iron]

Here is a portable hydra drill "deep Rock"

 

[Georgia Iron]

And here is a small rig with a rock bit cutting threw stone

 

[Georgia Iron]

A nice truck mounted rig. It has a tricone bit with fast drill speed

 

[DMiller]

For those last two, need a water supply and mud truck and a serious supply volume compressor.

 

[Georgia Iron]

This is simple setup with a mud pump. Should be good in coastal areas..

 

[Georgia Iron]

This video shows how to use a dump truck, cable, pulley, steel pipe, and a back hoe to drill a well. Not really much needed special. Most contractors have this stuff on hand...

To me this one seems like a great idea.

 

[Georgia Iron]

After looking at my options and what miscellaneous pieces of steel I have laying around, I am going to go with a small rotary type drill. I was leaning heavily towards the dump truck method but I am not sure I will have enough open area to work with long cables.

I also located 250' to 300' of used drill stems for an affordable price. This mostly made up my mind for me.

I located a decommissioned boom which is full of hoses, fittings, a hydraulic winch, several nice hydraulic cylinders, some real nice pins and bushings and lots of 3/8"s steel plate, and 1/2" plate. It also has a hydraulic motor that is on a gear reducer
which should turn an auger type bit. Almost everything I need function wise to make it work.




I will be using salvaged materials as much as possible.

I am a little behind in posting the progress.

 

[Georgia Iron]

Over the last 7 years I have been piecing together a DIY drilling rig and I am about 75% there.
as follows:
1. Belltec hydraulic motor with hex drive. I have drilled hundreds of holes with it 3" to 24" diameter up to 12' deep. For power I use the FEL on the farm tractor, the CTL or the hoe on the TLB. All work great and being able to reverse is a must.
2. For drill string I have 210' of 2" pipe 7' length with rounded over threads on both ends with a collar on one end.
3. Swivel is a Lone Star with hex drive and adapted to the 2 3/8"- 8 round thread. It has a 1 1/4" water course.
4. Drill bit is a 3 wing carbide fish tail type and an accessory reamer.
5. Mud pump is a 3" Honda trash pump which is bigger than necessary but what I have.
6. Derrick is a old Hyster fork lift I was going to salvage the mast off and mount it on a trailer.

There are many DIY videos on YouTube which answers a lot of questions. Other than working your azz off with the small lawn mower or 2 man post hole power units there is a common problem. Circulation of drilling fluid. To minimize problems one must have enough pressure and volume of the mud to bring the cuttings to the surface. Otherwise the drill string will get stuck and the risk of loosing your pipe increases. Also the cuttings need to be brought up in reasonable time to allow examination to determine the strata you are in.

So you and I seem to be thinking in the same direction. I met a fellow that does his own wells out west. He has a very interesting rig that he made and he tried 3 different pumps.

Starting with a small harbor freight pump, to a bigger harbor freight pump and then to a really nice 3" trash pump. He lost his drill string 3 different times. He has done bores that are 12 to 15" in diameter. Runs full on irrigation pivots.

He said that the deeper he went adventually the pump could not keep up and problems began. He now uses a basic and cheap method of removing cuttings with water and an air lift. I am hoping to do something similar.

Basically instead of pushing cuttings up the hole you suck them out.

 

[Delmer]

This video shows how to use a dump truck, cable, pulley, steel pipe, and a back hoe to drill a well. Not really much needed special. Most contractors have this stuff on hand...

To me this one seems like a great idea.

That could work on a very specific soil type, and then it might have some big problems. They're doing a cable tool method substituting an expensive backhoe for a cheap winch, and doing without the automatic hammer action. Not the greatest strategy in my book. Pennsylvania oil wells were originally drilled with a steel drill, a rope and a few logs, and man power. The Chinese drilled wells 40 times as deep as you need, with bamboo, thousands of years ago. I would look into a used cable tool rig before I tried to turn a bucket truck lift into a well drilling rig, but I don't know you or what you do. My closest experience with cable tool drilling is an Amish neighbor that had another Amish guy drill his well, didn't see it in action, and the guy wouldn't talk about it much, but was interested in selling the rig for $10K. He wasn't legal, and only worked "close to home".

 

[DMiller]

Problem with augers at depth is drive pipe torque and threads or other connections types failures.