Bits ‘n Pieces – The Driller’s Blog

Diamond drillers can fall into a routine of using the same equipment over and over. Why not? If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. This is especially true if you are used to drilling in the same region where ground conditions may not vary all that much. However, you may then find yourself drilling in another part of the country, or the world, with conditions that require a different type of equipment.

Water swivels may not be the first piece of equipment that comes to mind when you think about diamond drilling. The rig, the rods and the core bit would likely pop in first. Yet the water swivel has an integral role to play in the drilling process. In surface drilling, the water swivels are responsible for delivering a sufficient amount of flushing fluid to the bit and for hoisting the drill rods in and out of the bore hole. They need to be reliable and you need to choose one with enough load capacity to do the job.

In this blog we have provided a lot of information about how to choose equipment and how to take care of it properly. Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to look beyond the equipment part of the job and focus on how to do the job, or in the case of this blog, how not to do the job.

Drilling parameters are really important when it comes to achieving great drilling performance and extended equipment life. While it is important to choose the right equipment, once drilling conditions change, you need to adjust your parameters to maintain good drilling performance. Understanding how to adjust drilling parameters can help drillers improve performance in difficult drilling situations.

As we say often in the blog, choosing the right equipment is one of the most important parts of the drilling process. Whether it’s choosing the right core bit, a reaming shell or some other part, there are always many factors to consider before making a choice. When it comes to overshots, there are regular overshots and safety overshots. Let’s look at four good reasons to consider a safety overshot.

Who would have thought a few months ago at the beginning of this year and this decade, that COVID-19 would impact so much of our lives? We had all heard about it, but it seemed far away. Now it has landed in just about every country and in everyone’s life. It has had a huge impact on so many industries such as healthcare, but how is it impacting the world of drilling and mining? We talked to a few sources to find out.

There is a lot of negative news circulating, so we thought it would be a good time to launch a new, free guide available now for download. Our newest publication is the Diamond Drillers’ Guide to Extending Core Bit Life. It provides a lot of information and advice on how to get the most life out of your core bit. We touched upon this topic a while ago in a blog, but this guide has a lot more information that has been requested often since we wrote the blog.

In our last blog, we looked at the expression “pushing a block”, what it meant and why drillers should never try to advance in a hole when the core is blocked. However, in many parts of the world, especially where dry hole drilling is common, or when the hole is very deep, different advice and procedures should be followed. We are going to look at these different situations and the recommended procedures.

Like many other industries, diamond drilling has its own language. I’ve done a few blogs about the acronyms and the terminology that newcomers to the industry should know. There are always a few expressions that don’t get onto a list and “pushing a block” is one of them.

PDAC 2020 is in a few short weeks and companies in the mining and mineral exploration business have kicked into high gear preparing for it. The PDAC is the largest exploration event every year and an excellent opportunity to launch new products, videos and promotions. This year’s version will be taking place from March 1 to 4, 2020 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Canada.