WorldWide Drilling Resource

74 OCTOBER 2013 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® GEFCO GEFCO Training Class 2013 Through the Eyes of a Student...Part II by Veronica I. “Ronnie” Jones Managing Publisher One just never knows what to expect when you enter that classroom on the first day. Our first day was, of course Monday, May 13th. My first shock was the NEW classroom. Quite an upgrade fromseveral years back as you can see in this photo. Not only was the classroom nice, but the welcome was even better! GEFCO goes all out for their classes. Aa r on Ha rmon , GEFCO president, greeted all of us and promptly intro- duced many of the staff, including some of whom would be working with us. Here’s a few shots of them. How many can you recognize? Still Guessing? Keep looking... Look for the Hard Hat and GEFCO Training Manual each month C h a r l i e Cunningham, vice president of sales & market- ing at GEFCO was eager to see these students learn about drilling and gave a hearty wel- come to all. I would be remiss if I didn’t show our head Professor, Gord Bailey, from Sir SandfordFleming College, Ontario, Canada. AND, I couldn’t help but catch a few of us getting around to “hitting the books”... Gord took right off with drilling his- tory and its evolution. (I would hope each of you would be able to read the history of GEFCO as it emerged a world leader from its humble beginning in 1931, right up to its current day stance as an Astec Industries Company. It is quite impressive! Did you know: V Water is the single most impor- tant substance for sustaining life? V Everything on earth depends on water for survival? V 97% of freshwater is ground- water? As history reflects, there are five ways to construct a well and there are five tools needed to drill. Can you name them? Originally it is believed the con- struction of “wells” may have begun before human civilization. How about digging for water in a dry streambed during a drought. That is a true animal instinct! Then humans decided it would be best to drill smaller and deeper holes for quarrying operations and constructing brine and water supply wells. Thus we were off - Can you answer the question - which came first, the chicken or the egg? If you can answer that one, maybe you can answer a drilling question. Which came first, rotary or percussion drilling meth- ods? Send us the answer to this GEFCO STUDENT QUIZ , and you just may get a surprise in your mailbox! Then we were off to the original percussion drilling systems. What were they? How about a heavy, sharp object successively lifted and dropped to bore through the earth’s surface. Some of the earliest bits were chisel-shaped flat stone or metal. But of course, to get the proper amount of pressure you needed something like a “sinker bar” attached directly above the bit. In 600 BC, per- cussion drilling for salt began. A great deal of bamboo was used and animals (oxen) were used in a sort of merry-go- round area covered by fronds to shade them, and they were kept moving in that circle to force the drill down to pen- etrate the earth. Moving forward, by the end of the 19th century, sinkers were being con- structed as sliding linkages (“jars” in the USA). The linkages would open and close, and the sharp impact pro- vided extra force to the bit on the downstroke. A corresponding blow on the upstroke would then free the bit. Did you realize many of those same basic tools used over 300 years ago, resemble those we use in today’s drilling? Ironic isn’t it? Take a look at a few of these sketches and you will see how labor intensive drilling was way back when... You think you have i t bad today with air conditioned vehicles and MP3 players, etc.? Be sure to look for the Training Manual and “ RED GEFCO hard hat” next month as we continue our journey. *The GEFCO brand name is now an Astec Industries Company. Nice-looking group, aren’t they?