Is Your Drill Rod Grease Really Doing What You Want?

Most diamond drillers understand the importance of lubricating all the moving parts of the drilling equipment they use – we’ve talked about it often in this blog. Lubrication will help preserve and extend the life of your drilling equipment, prevent rust and allow your equipment to descend down the bore hole faster.

Lubricating your drill rods is particularly important because by doing so, you are reducing the chance of your rods galling and cracking, and your lessen vibration in the hole. However, like in any industry, innovation and technology have changed and improved the way we do things. Drill rod grease may not be the best option for keeping your drill rods lubricated.

Let’s face it, drill rod grease can be messy and many drillers hate using it. It gets all over everything and is a pain to remove from your clothing. What’s more, it just doesn’t do the job as well when you are drilling deep holes. Imagine you are drilling a bore hole that is 1,000 meters or more. You can slather the drill rods all you want while they are at the top about to descend. Once they start going down, the grease starts to rub off. By the time your rods are at the bottom, very little of the grease will still remain on the rods. So when you start to have issues you may be blaming the drill rod grease because it doesn’t seem like it is lubricating the equipment.

What you really should be using and which performs much better are drilling fluid additives, such as DD Xpress, DD 2000 or Torqueless. The greatest advantage to these products is that they are mixed with your drill water and circulate through all of the equipment. This means that every nook and cranny on all the equipment is lubricated, as much at the top of the hole as at the bottom, and that includes your core bit which will get cooled and flushed properly.

So why are drillers still using it? Because it is less expensive than additives. But the lower price doesn’t help much if you have to pull your rods at 1,000 meters deep. Also, you want to keep your drillers happy. As business picks up, good experienced drillers are hard to find.

So make your drillers happy and keep your equipment happy. Use a good thread compound on your threads, good multi-purpose grease on your head assemblies and consider some drilling fluid additives for your drill rods. If you have questions about which products you should be using, or want information on drilling fluid programs, contact any of our drilling technical support reps. Our goal is to improve your drilling performance.

Is Your Drill Rod Grease Really Doing What You Want?

posted by Rod McCoremick, Blog author, Fordia Powered by Epiroc