Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. PGDIF

RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:My thinking on Debeers and PGD

[DCDRILL]

Bauer is a manufacturer, but they are famous mostly for large diameter foundation drills (bucket auger/continuous flight auger).  These could be used to gain shallow bulk samples, but are limited in depth to 150ft+/-.

Drilling 101:  when it comes to drilling, think of the downhill tooling/method and not the manufacturer/brand name

There are 5 different types of drilling:
Rotary cut (augering)
Rotary abrasive (diamond core, poly-diamond crystalline)
Rotary percussion (down hole hammer/top hammer/reverse circulation)
Percussion (probing/cable tool)
Sonic (resonance)

The benefit of an RC drill is that they are fast, large diameter, can achieve great depths, and the drilling method can be adapted to a variety of rig manufacturers equipment.  It works by flushing air down the drill rods which actuates a percussive hammer at the bottom.  This ensures all of the energy is going into the formation as opposed to a top hammer which loses it's energy through the drill rods with depth.  The bit has carbide buttons embedded in it, with holes that allow the air to come through to cool the bit, and remove cuttings which are flushed up the annulus of the drill string as opposed to the outer annular space like conventional down the hole hammer drilling.  The end result is a pile of pulverized kimberlite into chips about the size of a fingernail.  The percussive energy along with slow rotation give very fast penetration rates especially in soft formations.

Any mine site will have several types of drill rigs on it...diamond core, rotary, geotechnical, blast hole, HDD.  It's important to know your drilling rigs, every method and manufacturer are different.  When working in remote areas you have to determine the intent of the exercise, then find a balance between size of rig you can mobilize, and the depth you want to acheive.  

I'm sure you can find all kinds of videos online if you want to see how each drilling method works.