Well, well, well.....

[glenn kangiser]

Well, Harry had a problem with his well. It had 2 pumps - one was dry ...the other almost.

He called me about it and I told him we could try fixing it.  I also mentioned that it it was riveted casing -- California stove pipe from the 20's or 30's - somewhere around there that the chances of saving it may not be as good.

He got his pumps pulled and I went to look at the well and bring down some blow pipe I had from well drilling thinking we could blow it out and clean it up.



Shining sunlight down the well with a mirror is about the brightest light you can get.  Above is Harry's friend Aaron shining the sunlight down the well.  When we were looking down the well we noticed a couple of pipes in the bottom looking back at us.  Not good.  While there was a slight possibility of getting around them we thought likely they would have to come out.  After running the blowpipe down the well and hitting them without getting to water we knew they had to come out.

Unfortunately it was riveted casing so all we could do was try.

[glenn kangiser]

The pipes were around 50 to 60 feet down the well so we needed a fishing tool to take them out.

Harry took me to the junk yard where we located a peice of pipe and a flat plate that we could make the tool out of so after a bit of cutting ad welding this is what we came up with.



A 5 1/2 inch pipe flared to 6 1/2 on the pipe contact end with a one way toothed trap door on it.



The door hinge was made with a long 1/2 inch bolt with the door welded to it which also kept it in place.

I made a ramp to make the pipe slide past the hinge.

[MountainDon]

No end to the cleverness going on. Off to bed here... catch up in the AM.   

[glenn kangiser]

The fish tool worked so well we hooked the first fish right away and pulled it out but pulled too hard with the winch and broke it at 20 feet leaving whatever else was in the hole there.



We got the first one out and went in again for the second one.


More careful this time we jumped up and down on the cable to shake the pipe loose from the sand.



We manhandled the pipe to get the tools off and pull the pipes  out of the well.



Soon we had the whole 50 feet laying out on the ground.  It had been stuck in the sand at least 40 feet.



The pipe didn't have a chance with this set of teeth coming after it.

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks, Don.  I told Harry I was really good.

Here is the bite put on the pipe by the fish tool.



Note that none of the fish we caught had a coupler on top -- we bit right into the side of the pipe.

[Alasdair]

The art of bodging is alive and well in CA! 

[glenn kangiser]

New word for me, Al.  Meaning here must be different - I assume - making things work from junk or similar? hmm

[glenn kangiser]

hmm I guess Harry knows I'm having a hard time getting started moving this morning. 

[desdawg]

That is pretty ingenius Glenn. Your very own Jaws. I am surprised the pipe pulled and didn't break.

[Alasdair]

Youv'e hit the nail on the head Glenn

do you have this show in the U.S.?

http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/S/scrapheap2008/index.html

Lots of great bodging on it...

Al

[glenn kangiser]

We had - or maybe have one called Junkyard Wars on cable TV, Al.  I want to look around on your link a bit more - looks interesting.

We also had McGuyver, but this stuff is the way I have had to work all of my life to survive, so it is just natural.  I don't have a TV - that I watch anyway.  I watched it a bit when working out of town.

I look at the problem, figure out a solution, gather the junk, design, engineer and fabricate it as needed.  The above took about 2 hours including finding the junk.

I always think how much better I could have done, than the guys on TV.  

Actually some of them did do pretty good, but you could tell it was a setup as they went to what looked like predetermined places to find just the right piece of junk....but ...that's TV.

McGuyver was stretched so far that many of his thing couldn't have worked or would have been marginal in his application... a problem that arises when Hollywood writers try to think.

[glenn kangiser]

That is pretty ingenius Glenn. Your very own Jaws. I am surprised the pipe pulled and didn't break.

The first one I did break -- I hadn't thought it was 40 feet or better in the sand so pulled it in two.  The second time we kept jumping on the cable as the pipe eased its way gently up out of the sand.  After about ten minutes of jumping and alternately taking up slack with the winch, it came loose.

[glenn kangiser]

We put a double blow pipe into the well - 3" eductor with a 1 1/4 inch air line.  I like to hang it on the cable from the bottom- little chance of something coming apart and falling in.



Note the roller to prevent cable damage and skillet to prevent tool loss and hang the pipe on while assembling - also fabricated on the job.

We started blowing the dirt, chunks of wood, snapties sand - gravel etc out of the well.  This well had very little water in it - maybe 6 feet when we started hence the requirement for the double pipe to keep the uphill velocity of the air high enough to remove anything that would fit through the pipe all the way from the bottom. 

The small pipe is turned into the large one at the bottom in a manifold so that as the air lightens up the water inside the 3 inch pipe, un-aerated water rushes in the bottom and getting into the air stream becomes aerated and is blown out the 3" pipe -- kind of like a dredge sucking sand and debris with it.  It is a form of air lift pumping that we use to clean the well.

Harry obtained a 185 CFM compressor from his friend, Gene so we had enough air to do the job.



Unfortunately I had warned Harry ahead of time that if it was California stove pipe casing, it may not take kindly to our efforts.  He wasn't sure if it was but upon my arrival we verified that it was.

California stovepipe method of drilling was done from the turn of the century on up to about 1930 or so and involved flat sheets of metal rolled and  riveted into well casing (made into pipes).  It was marginal at the time it was made and being many times near 100 years old it is probably only about a 50% chance that we can save it and make it into a usable well again...but as Harry said...we had to try.

As we raised and lowered the pipe the casing broke more as evidenced by small chunks that came up with the sand and the bottom level raising until it was higher than what we started at along with the decrease in the flow of water.



Harry found a book describing the casing method.  Good for download if you are so inclined also.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Y-MRAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA108&lpg=PA108&dq=california+stovepipe+well+casing%27&source=web&ots=r4q1mySc7h&sig=DKWuV2ROg2bBpPTy66lC__RbfXA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA109,M1



Blowing the well



So in all - the fishing expedition was a 100% success.

We did our part right in trying to save the well, but there was nothing good enough to save. 

The advantages?  hmm

Now there is no question as to whether anything more could have been done to repair the well.  No pumps were lost in the making of this documentary -- nor will they be in an old casing that could collapse and lock them into the ground... a possible loss of several thousand dollars, and more on CP may have learned a bit more about wells than they already knew... or ever wanted to know.

I had warned Harry at the start of this project that I was about the best there was in the United States on this type of a problem, so If we couldn't fix it, there was no hope.  I learned from the best and studied more after I learned from him in order to have the best knowledge I could of what was happening underground and in the air lift pumping well developing process.

He had been told by a local pump man that nothing could be done for it, but he did not know the methods I had learned.   The fact that we were not able to save the well is beside the point.  If we had not done all there was that was possible Harry would have always had questions.

I stuck with my minimum price of $600 to check it as I know that Harry has to drill a new well , but reality sucks and my truck had just taken $150 worth of diesel to not fill it.  We had parts of 3 days preparing and 2 full days working.  Sometimes I sell my body very cheaply.  I had combined picking up the pipe at my other yard with getting my lathe as I wanted to do it soon anyway.

So -- that's the rest of the story.

[glenn kangiser]

Hey Al, I watched some of the vids and it is some of the same people on there.  Must be associated with them.  It is one TV show I like better than the mindless junk that is usually on nowadays.

[peternap]

That was interesting Glenn. Nice of you to cut the price but nice don't pay the bills

You said you did everything you could do......Did you do the water witch dance though?

[glenn kangiser]

I didn't do the dance, Peter, but it is a very nice looking dance.

Harry is one of our members here and a good friend, so I will get even in horse trading. 

He has supplied me gold prospecting supplies and we commonly deal back and forth.  If we would have been able to save it I would have asked a bit more for the fishing but considering that it is necessary to drill a new one I am happy with the expenses covered and a bit for the work.  I posted the pricing so our members would have an idea of what things like this run.  If Harry wouldn't have supplied the compressor then double would have been fair.