Bits ‘n Pieces – The Driller’s Blog

Finding reliable staff in the diamond drilling industry has always been a challenge. Many of the challenges we hear about from our customers involve problems with training. Some prominent drilling companies are investing in training of upwards of 100 employees per month and only end up with 10% of them moving the next phase of training.

The equipment needed for underground drilling is different than what you need for surface drilling. The main and obvious difference is that with surface drilling, you’re drilling downwards while when you are underground your boreholes can go up or horizontal. That means that you are often drilling with gravity working against you. To counteract the effects of gravity, you need equipment that can help you install in-hole equipment into an up-hole. A stuffing box is an example of that type of equipment and it’s great when you can find a stuffing box that gives you extra features.

One of the events we all look forward to with the start of each New Year, is the AME Roundup event, typically held in Vancouver, Canada at the end of January. This event kicks off the annual mineral exploration season and helps get us ready for PDAC in March. This year, COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the drilling world, along with the rest of the world. It has forced our industry to find creative ways to continue doing business and AME Roundup is no exception. That is why we are happy that the event has gone virtual, allowing the global exploration industry to get together safely.

Happy holidays to everyone. The holidays are almost over, and the New Year is around the corner. By now, a lot of you will have received our holiday gifts and one of those gifts is a card game called the 2,000 Meter Club. Maybe it was the quarantine, but we got inspired and came up with an idea to turn a famous game into a core drilling version. Diamond drilling is not the most well-known of industries so it’s pretty great that there is now a game that was created just for you.

Drill sites can be found all over the world, often in some very remote areas. Getting equipment to these sites can be tough.  It’s always interesting to learn about the various methods of transport equipment suppliers and drilling companies use. Some of these methods may surprise you.

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.