Machining a 1000lb (450kg) Auger Drive Sub (Wait until you see the AUGER!)

In this week's video we're machining up the drive sub for the Big Rig auger bit which will be used to drill the first 12-15m (40 ish feet) before we send in the 3.0m (10ft) MEGADRILL.

The part starts as a 1200lb (500kg) billet of solid 4140, and end up as what looks like a giant square impact driver.

We'll be testing out "HAL" (our Colchester Alpha 1760's) maximum power to see if it'll run a 130mm Kennametal HTS drill... and if that fails, we'll use 'THE KRAKEN" ... our 110mm Shop Made Drill. I just want to test out to see if our big CNC has the power to run the 130HTS. Prediction: it won't... but you never know if you don't have go!

Then it'll be off to our Quantum FBV-S5 Bed Mill "GODZILLA" to shape out the driver end.
And maaaate.... is there some shaping to do...

About HAL Heavy Duty:
We're a real life machine shop for a 60 year old drilling company located in Central Queensland, Australia. Our job is to keep rigs running in the field, fixing all the stuff drillers break, and creating all the custom gear they need to get the job done!

We run three CNC's, manual repair lathes, a few mills and a big green Megabore Lathe we call "THE HULK"... and are constantly having to make weird and wonderful tools for odd (usually oversize) jobs.

We're a little shop that takes on big projects, and the latest is our MEGADRILL project where we're manufacturing a 3.0m (10 foot!) drill bit that'll weigh upward of 20 tonnes and we're getting ready to send it 250m (800+ feet) deep.

Here's the latest on the project!
The Megadrill Project    • The Megadrill Project (A 3m Drill bit...  
The Drive Sub    • Big Rig Drive Sub | Megabore Lathe | ...  
Mega Drill Rods
   • Mega Drill Rods Getting Torqued Up To...  

We release one video a week (usually on Friday/Saturday) to give you all a window into our heavy duty world.

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