I recently offered to help a friend drill a well on his property. No, we're not drilling for oil and I really didn't help all the much. Fact is the hole only progressed about six inches during the several hours I was there. But what I really enjoyed was watching the 50-plus year old machine pound away. The truck looks like a '40s-'50s International with a flathead six. The drill rig is all hand built and has it's own engine. He recently re-powered it using a Nissan diesel pilfered from an International Scout. He also utilized the manual tranny (T-18 or T-19) and the Dana 20 transfer case from the Scout. From there power is spun through a 3-inch wide chain and sprocket setup that powers the drilling rig. The engine purrs along at just off idle all day long.

It's a cable tool rig. So it's basically a 2,000 pound hammer at the end of a cable that pounds a hole deep into the ground. It moves up and down about 18 inches and mashes the soil and rock at the bottom. Occasionally, the "drill" is removed and a large pipe is lowered into the hole to pull out the dirt and rock bits. Kind of like taking soda out of a glass with a straw by putting your thumb over the top. As you can imagine it takes a while. A typical 8-hour day nets about one foot of depth. He needs to reach 350 feet and on this day we were at about 120 feet deep. He was at 140 or so but a cave in set him back. Good news is after beating on the cave in for three days he finally broke through and was back to the 140 foot mark.