Readers, I have been going over details of a Bucyrus-Erie 20W spudder rig. You don’t see many of these rigs around anymore, at least not on the job here in southern Michigan. You also don’t talk to many drillers, active or retired, who have experience running a spudder. I know of a successful contractor who operates in my county, and they run several rotaries and have one spudder they rarely use. A grand total of two people, one semi-retired, know how to operate it. So perhaps this series of columns has some historical significance.
As promised last time, this column discusses the spudder system of the 20W. This was, of course, the most important part of a spudder rig. If this mechanism failed, the rig did not make hole, which is precisely what it was supposed to do. As with almost all modern spudders the 20Ws were gear driven. A small pinion on the jackshaft controlled by a friction clutch drove a much larger spudder gear. Virtually all spudders shared this design, although there was a company who had a successful line of spudders driven by V-belts that mainly served the oil industry. Needless to say, those rigs ran very quietly. I saw one in action on a couple of occasions and consider it a good design.