Cathead Spinning Chain

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bill Belz on December 20, 2010 at 3:29pm

Fingers getting mangled or cut off is the biggest one.

I've had my glove ripped off my hand many times.

Chain getting loose from the chain hand and hitting the other floorhands is another.

It is attached to the jerk chain for the tongs.

With an old school crew it's faster than an iron roughneck.

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Permalink Reply by Anthony Paul Ruiz on January 13, 2011 at 1:38pm

I personally don't like the Iron Roughneck as opposed to the tongs and chain. tripping pipe takes twice as long and there is a lot of maintenance involved in keeping the roughneck operational. It may be a little more worm proof from safety hazards but. Tongs and chain are a lot better way to go

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Permalink Reply by steven "BigTex" Beggs on October 25, 2012 at 11:01pm

Yes sir there trying to take the rough outs roughnecking who the hell wants to be an easyneck might as well start calling it puffneckin

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Permalink Reply by Anthony Waldrop on January 15, 2011 at 10:06am

Where i come from its all spinning chain most companies in this region dont have the technolgy that most other places have, its all old school here

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Permalink Reply by Roughneck Robert on February 17, 2011 at 11:02am

I have only worked on rigs with catheads. It's definetly all old school where I work. I personally like the spinning chain. As long as everyone knows what they are doing and keeps it safe it is a valuable thing to have on a rig.

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Permalink Reply by Joseph N Green Jr on November 6, 2011 at 2:04pm

Inexperience is the only unsafe part of throwing chain

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Permalink Reply by J.A GUTHRIE on November 6, 2011 at 7:30pm

The cathead spinning chain is air operated it usually has a slight delay between the driller releasing the joy stick and the air actually releasing enough to fully disengage the clutch sometimes especially when throwing the chain any delay stopping the chain or tongs is to much.with that said,I still prefer cathead spinning chain over any other method to make up pipe and collars.

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Permalink Reply by khaled Mohamed shehab on November 7, 2011 at 3:18am

It is a method to make up pipe where pipe Tongs are on the rig floor for making up and breaking out pipe. One tong is fastened by a sling to an anchor post , the other to the cathead winch line . With the tongs set , the cathead winch line is tensioned to apply torque through the tong to the pipe to make it up , the Reaction torque is taken up by the second tong through onto the anchor post . Two safety alerts from IADC point to incidents due to the breakout line spooled off and broke loose from the cathead , other incident due to back up pipe tong moved in clockwise position and IP became caught between snub line and backup pipe tong lever . see attachments. Finally all drilling operations have hazards which  should be managed safely.

 

Attachments:

• sa03-28.pdf, 34 KB
• sa03-30.pdf, 36 KB

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Kern on November 9, 2011 at 7:33pm

But back in the day the spinning chain and make up tongs were operated by pulling down on a metal handle above the driller called a Johnson Bar. When these were in  use it was all or nothing no easing into it as with an air clutch so the many dangers became more real thqan ever.

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Permalink Reply by Tracy Wilson on January 20, 2012 at 10:46am

We just called them "friction clutch" and they are still in use. In my opinion they are much easier to feather than an air cathead. The first air cathead I ran I about jerked the arm off my chainhand. Good thing he he was superfast at letting go as was I. Still lots of U-34s in use on shallow(1800' - 3500' Red Cave and Dolomite) wells in the Texas Panhandle. When I say lots I know of 2.

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Permalink Reply by Steve on November 9, 2011 at 7:58pm

Exactly threw chain on an old school rig for about 5 yrs it had an chain air chugger no hesitation whatsoever tripping pipe speed second to none ......We sure went through a lot of rope tails because of holding back to make pipe up tight.Especially breaking in new drill pipe..Those were the days my friend wouldnt have had it any other way though....  Be Safe !!

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Permalink Reply by Nic Morris on November 30, 2011 at 11:04am

I havent seen a spinning chain in about four years, when we first got our iron roughneck we all hated them because of how much they slowed us down, now after a few years of working with them and learning tricks, my hands can run it faster then tongs. I broke out on a compound kelly rig with tongs and a spinning chain, now Im drilling on a rig with a topdrive,st-80,hydralic slips, and nov eds system. I can trip way faster with this setup then I could on my old kelly. Its a big rig 40' rig floor 120' derrick million pound derrick, I can pull 12000' in 2 hrs, coming of bottom on the first stand in low high first throttle.

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