water well drilling opinions needed

[don4140]

Good news, don4140! I've researched this and it's clear that if you perform self-surgery for kidney stones, you will never worry about kidney stones again ever.

Man, that's great news. Save me from doing any more research. I might start on them stones tonight!!! Yea!!

 

[don4140]

You boys laugh all you want.

I've seen all sorts of badasses...guys with tattoos. Earrings. Leather jackets. Harleys. But really, wimps, all of them compared to this guy. That thing he's holding? A bladder stone. From an operation he performed in 1655. ON HIMSELF.

I have aged since that picture, but still have that bad boy in a jar on the mantle!

 

[don4140]

I you want a little tougher thread you can do the 1 7/8 used oilfield tubing threads they are a 8 thread per inch and quite a bit stronger have used those for fishing tools and anything else that is a one and done maybe it will work situation. Breaking the joints is always fun if you dont have the proper system. your joints will be tighter than anything you have ever dealt with

I have an api booklet and another booklet about keeping your strings together. I appreciate your thoughts and will look that up later tonight.

 

[don4140]

I have drilled 3 wells , 60'-0" average. This was for irrigation on my farm. The PVC casing was 3" on 2 wells and 4" on 1 well. I have sandy loam which needs Bentonite clay to keep the walls from caving in while drilling. I used two pumps and a mixing box I made to mix the bentonite .
I would suggest you hire a well driller if 130'-0" is average well depth in your area.

What did you use to drill your wells. Do you have or did you make a rotary yourself? Did your pump pull the cuttings well enough?

 

[don4140]

Better check with the local regulations. I have had 2 wells drilled by pro's and they had to cement in the upper casing to avoid contaminating the aquifer. The one will driller also said you need to pick a higher place to drill the well as if you drill in a low area, when it rains all the dog crap and rain water will pool around the pipe and leak into the ground. He picked an area that was 6 foot higher. My wells use a 4" casing and we put a deep well pump that is inside the casing and it's down around 180 feet down with a 100' head. (water above the submersed pump) I can't remember how deep the casing goes. I think it goes all the way down. If you have to drill 130 feet to hit water you have a DEEP Well and a regular shallow well pump won't work like a shallow well pump that only pulls up about 50 feet. You should call some local well drillers and have them give you a quote, so you learn the regulations. If you pollute the aquifer you will probably end up in jail with a $million dollar + fine.

There are regulations in Texas as to finishing a well. I will have a well screen at the bottom of the casing, follow by placing pea gravel to a certain level, and then cementing the well from the gravel pack to the surface. I will later place a slab around the whole thing if not simultaneously.

 

[4GSR]

I had a uncle years ago that put together a small trailer mounted drill rig. He being around the oilfield all his life and a big shot with Getty back then, he had access to just about anything he wanted from the oilfield. This little drill rig was equipped with about 200 feet of pipe, I want to say 1.660" OD by 8- to ten-foot-long joints of tubing. I think what he did was cut a 30-foot joint of tubing into thirds. He had them threaded with Hydril CS two-step thread. It's a flush joint connection with a three shoulder contact on make up. Excellent for driving on a small drill ring. I don't recall how many wells he drilled over time, I would guess less than a dozen. Also had a small pump of some sort. I don't remember details of the pump. Have no clue what the family did with that drill rig. By now if it is still around, pretty rusted out.
I'm just one county over from you in Victoria. From what I can remember, this ground in this area is not too difficult drill in for several thousand feet. Mostly shale and cleatchy. At the surface down first twenty some odd feet, good old black dirt that turns into mud at the moment a drop of water hits it.

 

[reggie_obe]

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[idacal]

I dont drill much rock, but thats what down the hole hammers are for. but do I drill a lot of river gravels, sand, and clays usually air drill with steel casing but when I have to do fluid I use a marsh funnel, usually try to start a well at about 40 vis but if I know I have clay quick will start at about 35 viz. and it will start climbing when you hit clay the way you will be doing it. there are polymers you can get but they are very expensive for this type of hole. you may have to dump your mud and mix new just depends on how thick the clay layers are. when drilling with fluid the clay is the slowest drilling of all the formations besides hard rock

 

[don4140]

I had a uncle years ago that put together a small trailer mounted drill rig. He being around the oilfield all his life and a big shot with Getty back then, he had access to just about anything he wanted from the oilfield. This little drill rig was equipped with about 200 feet of pipe, I want to say 1.660" OD by 8- to ten-foot-long joints of tubing. I think what he did was cut a 30-foot joint of tubing into thirds. He had them threaded with Hydril CS two-step thread. It's a flush joint connection with a three shoulder contact on make up. Excellent for driving on a small drill ring. I don't recall how many wells he drilled over time, I would guess less than a dozen. Also had a small pump of some sort. I don't remember details of the pump. Have no clue what the family did with that drill rig. By now if it is still around, pretty rusted out.
I'm just one county over from you in Victoria. From what I can remember, this ground in this area is not too difficult drill in for several thousand feet. Mostly shale and cleatchy. At the surface down first twenty some odd feet, good old black dirt that turns into mud at the moment a drop of water hits it.

Interesting. I looked at that hydrill two step when viewing some old threading paperwork. if memory serves they use an acme thread profile. It can be fun cutting that thick thread on an internal bore, but i would give it a shot if that becomes the best option. During these communications I looked back into the drillers logs i had not seen in some time. While some are drilled deeper, many set the submersibles at 80' and the static levels of the nearest wells have very high static levels with good flow. From static levels of 20' to 65'. You're right on the mix. All these reports show alternating levels of sand and clay. We were at the acreage about a week ago. Had lunch at China B on navarro street. We love just about everything on their Buffet. I can't stay away from their General Tso. There prices have gone up. Seems the senior plates were over nine dollars, but we cannot pass them up on our trips over. Hoping to be full time residents soon. We are ready to catch some catfish on Lake Texana and spend some long days drifting on Matagorda bay after specs. Do you do much machine work?

 

[don4140]

I dont drill much rock, but thats what down the hole hammers are for. but do I drill a lot of river gravels, sand, and clays usually air drill with steel casing but when I have to do fluid I use a marsh funnel, usually try to start a well at about 40 vis but if I know I have clay quick will start at about 35 viz. and it will start climbing when you hit clay the way you will be doing it. there are polymers you can get but they are very expensive for this type of hole. you may have to dump your mud and mix new just depends on how thick the clay layers are. when drilling with fluid the clay is the slowest drilling of all the formations besides hard rock

I read about the polymers, and my summation based on those readings is that the polymers are easier to clean from the well than bentonite when developing. Or at least won't block access to an aquifer I might pass through. I had no idea about the product pricing. I am glad to learn about clay drilling being slower, it just seems counter-intuitive to what i might have guessed, so thank you for the education. Since these reports are pretty consistent about clay to 40 feet, i guess my viscosity should follow your lead around 35 viz to start. I will try to learn more about polymers while pulling this all together. Since you mentioned dumping the mud- is this because the mud dilutes the effects of the bentonite or increases the effects of bentonite. Are polymers subject to the same effect as bentonite? Thanks for your help and patience.

 

[idacal]

No its because the clay increases your viscosity. Usually when drilling clay it doesnt come out in big chunks it grinds into mud and gets absorbed into your drilling fluid kind of like wet clay sticks to your boots so as the drilling fluid gets thicker with native clays then your wall cake gets thicker, the sand doesnt drop out of the fluid and it adds to the wall cake it becomes a cycle and it goes slower and slower so you push harder and you will end up with a boot right above the bit thats when you need pullback. Which is great fun NOT. and actually polymers like easy mud gold, haliburton, wyo-vis, wyoben, (not sure of the cetco clay inhibiters)are actually harder to get out than bentonite and they are 300.00 for a bucket and you use one quart.
There is only one that use all the time and it is lubricant that reacts with the tools so the clay doesnt ball up on the tools as bad, can’t remember the name right now
But 3 bags of quick gell baroid are 28 dollars and that will make 500 gallons of fluid so its just easier if i cant ad water to just make new mud

 

[jim rozen]

When you're done talking about it, post up how the well worked out.

 

[4GSR]

China B will give you ...... There is one more Chinese restaurant we eat at over in the shopping center next to HEB's. Much finer food to me. Here's a picture of the thread profile used on the Hydrill two step thread. Toolflo in Houston carries the tooling to cut these threads. Not cheap by any means.

 

[Robert R]

Hello don4140:
The prevailing price for used 2 3/8 drill stem in Texas is about $30 for a 31 foot length. It would make more sense to buy the used drill stem and shorten it for your homemade equipment rather than attempt to adapt 1" pipe for the job.
Could you explain your reason for working with 1 inch pipe?

 

[true temper]

I had 600’ of drill pipe I sat on for 10 years, it had Mayhew jr threads on it 10’ long but I sold it a few months ago. I had several drillers interested in it but they were concerned that the pin end only had a 1” hole in it. They said they couldn’t get enough flow through it.
The way it was explained to me about the polymer is that it encapsulates the clay particles not allowing them to stick to themselves.
I done horizontal directional drilling for years, and yes clay is a bitch. It sticks to your tooling and drill pipe and hard to get out of the hole.
Look around some directional drillers yard and find some used pipe, it might be good enough and priced right.

 

[don4140]

Idacal

Great explanation on the viscosity. So polymers are harder to get out than bentonite. I'm getting a good education here! Baroid is not something I had heard about, so back to the search engines. This is going to be an adventure, isn't it?



Jim rozen:

It is now my plan to attempt a video of this action. I have not done a you tube type thing before either, so more to learn. After all the help and great info, I feel obligated to share the results with you kind folks.



4gsr:

I will have to try that restaurant. You are referring to the HEB on Navarro and not the one on business 59. Thanks for the tread profile. I found my strings book today, but have not really looked into it. Great to know about toolflo. I was likely to need some sources for some tooling and Houston is close enough. We had a machine shop in east texas in the mid 70's and it died in the early 80's with the oil industry collapse. Most small machine shops went under and ours dried up as well. We were making test plugs and farming out miscellaneous work from other shops. Did some acme, 8 round, etc. Most of my tooling has been in boxes for years and I'm not sure what all I really have. Every time I go to the farm, I clean the ways on the lathe and milling machine, and leave them with a coat of grease.



Robert R:

Only reason for considering the 1" id pipe is that I happen to already have it. Most of the small diy rigs I viewed some years ago were getting by with small id pipe. A week ago at the acreage we decided it's time to drill a well. I looked around, and almost everything I thought I needed was there. The great advice so far has made me reconsider that pipe option. I have not looked for used drill pipe, because it had not occurred to me that what I have might not work well. If I can find decent used drill stem at that price, around here, I would certainly entertain it. Do you know of a specific site for such stem. It's a big stateJ



True temper:

This thread has been a terrific sounding board. I will begin looking around for some used stem. Probably have one next door to me and haven't noticed. Duh!

 

[idacal]

Went and looked at the name of the only polymer i really use on shallow stuff is pene-trol helps with the clay sticking to the tools, that is also a baroid product. But polymers are for systems that are ran across shakers and desilting cones and where feet per hour matter. If you make 3-4 feet an hour through the clays count yourself lucky with a home built rig.the sands will be a lot faster though
dont dump your fluid any place that matters that stuff slimes up every rain for years

 

[4GSR]

You might want to go by Hardin Tubular Supply on the east side of Victoria there on the Houston HWY. They might have something laying around that may work. Ken

 

[Robert R]

Hello don4140:

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[true temper]

The polymer helps coat and seal the borehole walls preventing reactive clay from swelling. Swelling clay can stick your tooling and sometimes you can’t get it back.