Dryland Fishing .... stage 1 the drop

 House wells are a fact of rural life , When you live out in the sticks your local  Nannystate inc. doesn't bring you the benefits  of such modern convinces  water or sewer .
I will try to be comprehensive enough to explain things to someone with no experience with wells , and concise enough not to bore folks who have had some experience  with them  here .    
 A typical house well runs off a submersible electric pump that is located at the bottom of a stand of pipe  some feet below the ground surface .

 This system when installed properly is near bulletproof  for the life of the pump motor or impellers or both which is in my area an average of  7 to 10 years .
The house well I speak to though  was as close as I can remember last pulled out of the hole in 1977 or 1978.  and was still running 1¼ steel pipe . The well had run pretty consistently until the mid 1990s and then sporadicly tapering off till it just set since 2000 or so . It needed some attention.
So occasionally when pulling a well things go wrong ,  bad wrong,  and you wind up with the entire stand of pipe and pump setting on the bottom of the hole .  This to say the least is not  the happy place that you want to go to .
In this case  there was not a " proper "  well cap , and the pipe string was held  up by a couple of 2x6 boards  chiseled with a grove for the pipe   then bolted together sandwiching the pipe  between them while they rested on top of the casing .  The top of the pipe string was a T with a plug in top and a pipe union coming out the side .  Normal practice would be to unscrew the plug , and screw your wench attachment into the top of the t.  Not gonna happen here .. plug was froze solid .  no i mean 24" pipe wrenches with 4 ' cheaters on them solid .  So to plan B.. throw a light chain around the pipe below the wood and suck it down tight to choke the T and bring it up till we could get on it with a pipe vice  to pull from . Every thing worked according to plan right up until we pulled up on the chain , then in rapid order  one of the 2x6s just detonated , rotten wood and splinters went everywhere , and the pump went to the bottom in a rapid and noisy fashion .
 Once you have your pump setting on bottom rather than on top of the ground  there are several possibilities and none of them are real pleasant .
If your well bottom is mud  its likely that the pump and pipe drove themselves into it deeply enough that removal is may be impossible .
 If your well casing doesn't go all the way to the bottom  its likely that between the bending and distortion of the pipe and the cave in you just created  removal is may be impossible .
 If you have a good hard sandy bottom  with casing going all the way to the end of the hole  you stand a good chance of removing the pipe string and pump if you can get ahold of it .
The common thing in all of the above is that you are going " fishing " for a string of pipe .  now understand , this pipe is seldom just standing in the well like someone leaned a stick in a corner .  It may well have been profoundly bent from the force of the drop , and will have some number of feet of electrical cable on the top of it fowling the bore hole . Well fishing is always a hit or miss exercise in frustration and expense for every one concerned .
 As long as the cable is intact and on top of the pipe you cannot get ahold of the pipe  to lift it , and if you sent a tool down the hole to entangle the cable  hoping to pull it off or break it  you stand a chance of getting ahold of more than you really want to  resulting in a tool now stuck in the bore further fowling it .
A large part of the problem is traditionally the " guesswork "  involved .  You just cannot see what you have down there to work with .
Try this .. take a 6" cooking pot to represent typical house well casing ,  wad up an extension cord to fit  inside the it  and place it a mere 50 ft away on its side .  Now imagine how you are going to remove the cord from the pot without scratching it using a wench truck  .  I say without scratching it because if you are hammering on the pipe at this stage  you are driving it deeper , bending it more , and adding to the problems you will face next .

Dryland Fishing 2 The redneck well cam

Last post I left us with  a dropped pump , fowled by cable  and somewhat explained the issues this created .  Now Traditionally the experienced well guy at this point gets drunk because it saves time to start early .  Really what happens is that you hook up whatever tool you have dreamed up and made  to run down the bore and attempt to entangle the cable on top of  the pipe enough that you can either pull it in two  or lift the pipe string ( hopefully ) to the top with it .   Normally what happens is that  the cable breaks off at some unknown point , a wad comes to the top on your tool , and you are not really sure if there is more fowling the top of your pipe string or not .
Modern Technology has been on top of this for some years ,  they make down bore cameras . Really nice almost indestructible  down bore cameras  that will give many years of service under the harshest conditions and stream live video  to the surface to be viewed then or recorded and studied at leisure  from the comfort of the front seat of an air conditioned / heated  pickup .  Dammed things  cost about as much as that fancy pickup too .  No problem ..  we will just call the guy who has one , have him come over and shoot the hole right ?    Yea ..   possibly in your world since * that * guy  wants about $100 an hour that seems to start the instant he answers his phone , mileage both ways , and oh yea .. he can get to you sometime next week . Or if not possibly the week after .  You see he has a well rig too and is kinda pissed that you had your guy pull it rather than help him pay for his fancy toys , not that we are going to discuss what he charges  LOL .
This not being my first " fishing trip "  and since I have had some experience with the issues involved I really wanted a good look at just what was down hole on my well .  I put a bit of thought into it  and decided to experiment a bit with gross mis-use of off the shelf technology  .

Enter the Redneck Well Cam ... some assembly required ..

The local Alco store had a little Vivitar  camcorder priced at $19 and change , hmm takes standard sd card , and AA batterys ... Perfect !!   Dammed if it didn't ring up for $12 at checkout .. Bonus !  I am sure you can see where this is going .

Now here for a cost of roughly $20 we have the seeds of revolution LOL .
Upon assembly  it became apparent  that there was going to be a learning curve involved here .  The camera wasn't at all stable , and the light  seemed weak  but possibly this was more about the camera and light not being stable  when i think about it .  None the less  after a few trips down the hole we wound up with v2

I put on a streamlight pt2aa flashlight that is rated at 150 lumins  and it worked great , stuffing the entire assembly into the plastic juce jug  seemed to do a lot to stabilize it side to side  though it still " twirls "  this isn't really a big problem for my usage .

This pretty much shows it as i sent it down hole .






It took amazing video considering the investment involved .  The lack of real time video and steer-ability of view could well be a drawback but for what I needed  it was no big thing .
The first video  is more or less a proof of concept video  that also shows some of the trash that winds up on top of things ,  note that this isnt the first video i took  but was about 3 times into the process of have a look , run a light tool down on paracord to knock loose trash obstructing the bore , and look again .



 The second video is after we had snagged the cable and brought it to the top ( in this case it pulled the wires out of the pump )  to get a look at just what we had to deal with ontop of the pipe string .



By tying a knot in the string with the camera resting on " bottom " I established a rough depth  to " fish " for both the cable and pipe .

It was apparent that the union had not broken off and then fell down the bore  so we knew that a typical " flapper " fishing bit  ( a piece of pipe or casing smaller than the well case  with a flap pointing up that wont pivot  past center so it grabs pipe or a coupler when the bit slips over it. )  wasn't going to work well in this instance so something was going to have to be made for the job  .




 

Dryland fishing 3 .. The Fish

So how to get ahold  of  the mess we have down bore ?  I remembered from my oil patch days a tool called a " wall hook "  that they would run into the hole to pull broken drill stem to the center of the bore so they could get ahold of it .  This basic tool idea is what i modified  to not only pull my string to the center but * hopefully* to grab it at the same time .  I wanted the tool to be fairly rugged so I designed it to go onto 2" steel pipe for both rigidity and strength.

 I also beveled the inside of the bottom nearly to an axe edge level of sharp  so that the tool wouldn't " hang " on the shoulder of the T .


From running the cam down the bore we knew that the top of the T was right at 42' below the top of the casing . Steel pipe is supposed to be ( but this can vary ) 21' per joint  and we were working about 5' above the top of the well case ( it sets in a well pit ) .   So we started down the bore  and assembled 3 joints of pipe .  right where we should we made contact with the top of the dropped string , and a bit of slack in the wench line  coupled with a turn of the 2" via pipe wrench  locked us on .  I gotta say it worked like a charm .

We started putting pull on the pipe .. and it just sat there .. a bit more pull .. same result , by this time the 1/2 inch steel cable was starting to sing , and putting your hand on the 2" pipe you could feel it vibrate or quiver  under the strain . A bit more pull and slowly the pipe began to rise , it was apparent from the weight that we had most if not all of the dropped string attached .
All went well until the last joint , it started looking like spaghetti  as it came up

Not hard to spot the " problem "  joint is it ?

A bit closer look at the tears we made as we pulled it through the " die "  of the bottom of the casing straighting it out enough to come up

The other problem is shown here ..  That end is what is left of the check valve ( that keeps water from just draining back into the well )  that is on the top of the pump .. notice there is no pump in evidence .

Here is a pic of what * should * have been attached there , about 4' and 40 lbs  of  pump . Ahh well when we ran back in with new pvc pipe and a new pump everything is working fine so  that damned thing can just lay where we pulled it off the string i guess .


Anyway , thats dryland fishing  and I count it as a successful catch because a bit of time and thinking  got a " bad drop "  out  that likely would not have came with conventional fishing techniques  and that saved about $30,000 for a new well . 

Bad Bribes

" As an added incentive, the school district invites Douglas County Sheriff's deputies into their schools for free lunch. The district picks up the $2.75 tab."

Every cop i ever knew was a cheap bastard , but  i don't know of any that stoop to the level of a free school lunch  as a bribe to show up  LOL

source link
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/deputies-do-paperwork-outside-douglas-county-schools-a-security-innovation-inspired-by-newtown

Hitlers Pmags

Mailing it in

So I did the Ruger  contact your reps thing the other day  and the variance in responses is " interesting " .

Bennet:

Dear Friend: 

Thank you for your e-mail message.  Keeping in touch with Coloradans is important to me. Due to the high volume of messages my office receives on a daily basis, I ask for your patience as I work with my staff to respond to your concerns. 

I want to hear your thoughts on the issues that are important to you.  The best ideas come from people in Colorado, not from politicians in Washington.  That's why it's so important for me to hear your thoughts on how we can build a better future for Colorado and our country, together. 

While we work to respond to your request, I invite you to read blog updates http://bennet.senate.gov/about/updates/,  check out the latest news from your region of Colorado http://bennet.senate.gov/,  and subscribe to an e-mail newsletter that will provide you with regular updates on my work on behalf of Colorado http://bennet.senate.gov/contact/. If you want to know more about issues and specific bills before the Senate, please visit our issue pages.  If you're having trouble with a federal agency, visit the constituent services section http://bennet.senate.gov/services/.  Scheduling requests may be e-mailed to scheduler@bennet.senate.gov or sent by fax to 202-228-4083. 

Thank you for contacting me.

Please do not reply to this message. If you would like to send a message to Senator Bennet, please submit a form at http://bennet.senate.gov/contact. Thank you.

Udall

Thank you for your message to my U.S. Senate office.  Each week, I receive over 10,000 letters from Coloradans with their thoughts and suggestions.  Your views are invaluable and keep me consistently updated on Coloradans’ concerns.  Please know that we read each letter and email and will do our utmost to get you a timely response addressing your thoughts and concerns.

I am honored to serve as your U.S. Senator.  My top priority in the Senate is to provide efficient and effective representation of people across our state.  Please know that my Colorado staff is available to handle specific services relating to the federal government (such as help with a passport, claim for veterans’ benefits or a citizenship matter) and my Denver office can be reached at 303-650-7820.  If you would like to check on a request for services from my Washington, D.C. office, please call 202-224-5941 or toll-free at 877-7-MUDALL (877-768-3255).  Otherwise, be assured that we are reading your comments.

Warm regards,

and  an auto recept  from Gardner  followed by  this :

 

Dear Mr. FarmDad,

 

Thank you for contacting me regarding the 2nd Amendment. I appreciate you taking the time to write. It is an honor to serve you in Congress and I hope you will continue to write with your thoughts and ideas on moving our country forward. 
 
Following the unthinkable atrocities committed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, a number of legislators have introduced measures to regulate access and possession of firearms for U.S. citizens. Some of these measures include requiring face-to-face purchase of ammunition, assault weapons bans, and mandating background checks for all purchases - including private sales. While the Connecticut tragedy and others like it must not be ignored, I do not believe additional gun  control would have prevented the s e occurrence s . I do not think it is prudent nor within the bounds of the Constitution to limit our 2nd Amendment rights. This country has a centuries-long history of responsible and safe gun ownership by private citizens—we should not undermine this overwhelmingly sensible past by crafting legislation in response to the actions of a few. We must act in ways to prevent gun violence by making sure laws are enforced, addressing critical needs in mental health and treatment, and promot ing a national dialogue that ensures we identify violent actors before they do harm. 

Our Founding Fathers understood the importance of an armed and capable citizenry, enshrining that idea in the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution. Millions of Americans exercise this freedom without harming their neighbors, families, and friends and with no criminal intent. Unfortunately, a small minority do not abide by this constitutional right in the way it was intended. While our dedication to constitutional liberties is sound, we must ensure the same strength for our country's mental health facilities. In a discussion about gun rights, it is important to remember that providing necessary and improved resources to these facilities will help decrease the likelihood of similar future events. We must act to reduce and prevent these tragedies, while not interfering with the 2nd Amendment. 

In response to the Connecticut shootings, the President  has proposed executive orders to employ more expedient gun control measures. Such executive action on this issue  is unprecedented .  I believe in a deliberative legislative approach to this issue, not a presidential edict. It is important to understand the long, peaceful history of gun owners in this country while we work to reduce the number of horrific shooting crimes like we witnessed in Connecticut and in Colorado this summer. Please be assured that I will keep your thoughts in mind as we consider legislation concerning the 2nd Amendment in the 113th Congress.
 
Again, thank you for contacting me, and do not hesitate to do so again when an issue is important to you. 

 

Sincerely,

Can you guess  who might stand a chance of getting my vote  ?

link to the Ruger  contact process is   http://www.ruger.com/micros/advocacy/takeAction.html

Colorado Sheriffs Position

I received this via email  and have  not  confirmed it as authentic  but  thought it worth posting .

   CSOC Paper by  

If  this is in fact a true and accurate copy ,  it is the last thing  the legislature  wants to see or see distributed widely .  In my mind  it is consistent  with the views of  Colorado Sheriffs  I know personally .