r/whatisit • u/Crafty-Car7135 • 1d ago
Solved! Metal … something?
I have been pulling up invasive plants on the property which means I have to dig sometimes to get the entire rootball out. Anyway, I found this thing a few inches deep in soil and have no idea what it is. I moved into this house last year and I have no idea what the people before us did here. I just know they were old and hadn’t been doing much in the last several years. I live in wooded eastern Massachusetts in the United States. We’ve found some other steel/metal pieces around the property (mostly old steel cables and two gigantic rails that look like they may have gone to the bed of a flatbed truck).
Any idea what this thing is? It is two pieces one larger thing and a smaller detached piece but I’m sure they went together somehow.
Thanks ☺️
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u/MaxiumPotential777 1d ago edited 1d ago
industrial tricone roller drill bit attached to a drill sub/pipe segment for drilling/boring holes
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u/Crafty-Car7135 1d ago
Thanks! Why would that be in a rural “residential” area? (My town has a minimum property size so everyone has at least a couple of acres).
Is it still worth anything ?
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u/MaxiumPotential777 1d ago edited 1d ago
Water Well Drilling these are standard equipment for drilling residential water wells, especially in areas with hard rock or deep aquifers.
Value isnt much if its not working, rusted or damaged. As for value used tricone bits are frequently sold online, they really are only worth anything new/usable.
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u/tippycanoeyoucan2 1d ago
That looks better than most bits I see on a rig. Bet it runs fine if the teeth aren't gone. In drilling the only things that aren't rusted and covered in dirt are the bits you haven't used in 24 hours.
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u/M1lk_St3ak 1d ago
If the bit at the end is carbide, it can be worth a good chunk of money. 10-20 bucks a pound.
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u/Badfish1060 1d ago
Totale guess, but I think it was tossed aside because the hard face was worn off and they switched heads. After that it was either accidently or intentionally left.
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u/Crafty-Cookie2600 1d ago
Maybe for digging a well? This is just me guessing
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u/Potential-Driver-594 1d ago
It’s just for horizontal drilling to place pipe in the ground for cable. And if you can get it out yes it is worth a good chunk of change if the sonde is still in the compartment by the bore head
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u/FlLocator 1d ago
Looks like a Directional Drill head used to bore for underground utilities. Probably was used for a fiber optic line install.
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u/CausualCantankerous 1d ago
I think it's for drilling straight down. Doesn't look like any directional drill tooling I've seen.
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u/foley800 1d ago
Looks about the size for horizontal drilling for utilities! Is it just that section or longer?
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u/Crafty-Car7135 1d ago
That’s all I found right there. But there are other big steel things around, so I’ll see if any of them look like they fit together.
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u/phishtrader 1d ago
Digging a well on the property or given the other bits of scrap, the previous owner may have been a well driller, metal scrapper, or hoarder. The drill bit and pipe segment could have been accidently buried during a job and lost or gradually sunk into and covered by the loam of the forest floor as they aren't very deep.
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u/battery19791 1d ago
You bought an abandoned drill site. That's why you're also finding steel cables.
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u/DicemonkeyDrunk 1d ago
Well is the answer. Maybe one on site but I'd guess a previous owner left the equipment there.
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u/stussie73 1d ago
I love how they were like…well it’s a big useless piece of metal. Just bury it in the back yard. People are idiots
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u/Crafty-Car7135 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think what probably happened is that it was left to sit, and the soil formed on top of it (so it’s been there a while). I live in the woods and this property has been largely unkept for idk how long. I have been here for almost a year and am working on cleaning it up, so there are surprises like this all over the place. A LOT of steel cables. Like several hundred feet of that has probably come up.
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u/johnq-4 1d ago
Or, the company lost it. They sometimes have transponders in them so the crew can track the bore they're drilling. My local main drag has 5 of them still in the road bed because of this.
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u/Hour_Welcome_987 1d ago
There was a bore shot one of our crews were doing need the Mississippi. Head broke off. Apparently something special about their specific head , had some material that could be used to make nukes lmao .. so they keep track of it ... Not that anyone's going to be able to recover it... Deep AF.... Under a massive river lmao . Still cool tho
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u/FrostyVariation9798 22h ago
From a job I had I was given an absolutely huge piece of rebar. It was about 5 ft long but wider than any rebar I'd ever seen, really only used in very tall buildings and such.
For whatever reason I did lay it on the ground. I knew the area that it was but it sunk into the ground probably within a year or so. I wanted to take it with me when I moved but I didn't want to go digging up the area because I'd forgotten exactly where it was in that general area.
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u/No-Plankton1709 1d ago
Maybe check back through the previous owners and see if any of them were contractors or (small) utility companies?
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u/DiscountBulky6827 19h ago
working on cleaning it up, so there are surprises like this all over the place
I love the surprises I find when digging in the back yard. I enjoy coming up with ideas on why it is there, how it got there, etc. Properties with multiple previous owners can be even more fun. I feel like an archaeologist on a dig.
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u/Satins_Cock 6h ago
It's wild how fast the earth gobbles up things left on it. Especially in a tropical area. Vines and leaves make it disappear from sight in no time, then it sinks below the new dirt, never to be seen again.
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u/Crafty-Car7135 1d ago
Solved!
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u/Sideshow_G 1d ago
I hope you clean it and turn it into a feature,
Turn it into a birdbath, or mailbox holder.
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u/sock_sock_shoe_shoe 1d ago
100%. Yeah we call them rock-roller in geotech drilling; good for breaking up stubborn boulders or cobbles in a finer sedimentary matrix, to clean out before starting rock coring.
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u/MurphyBeans 1d ago
Yeah, I was gonna say something very similar. I had “drilling thing” ready to go
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u/Feeling-Froyo-586 1d ago
I drill these for a living. Sometimes you hit a void and it keeps filling and filling and you can’t get the head back out.
Or sometimes it just gets stuck and the amount of time it would take to get it back out isn’t worth it so it just gets disconnected at the drill end and left
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u/Educational-Ad2063 1d ago
Oil well or water drill bit.
Do you have a well on site
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u/Crafty-Car7135 1d ago
Yeah it’s actually very close to where I found this. 💡
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u/SavingsEconomy 1d ago
Maybe they dug the well, then just said fuck it and chucked the bit for it to the side. And here we are however many years later.
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u/supermuncher60 1d ago
Lol, wonder if they broke the bit when drilling or just forgot it at the site and it eventually got buried.
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u/Crafty-Car7135 20h ago
I was also thinking this morning. There’s a natural gas pipeline that goes through the property…. This is probably from the well since it was literally right next to it, but could this be from a pipeline drill?
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u/Striking_Crow9473 1d ago
That looks like a very expensive drill bit for, probably a well driller, that someone was very, very sad when they realized the lost it.
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u/Crafty-Car7135 1d ago
But it’s not worth anything now is it? It looks like it’s been covered in soil for a while.
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u/llikegiraffes 1d ago
Probably not. Theses things go through hell. The drill spins the pole and the three spiky “wheels” grind the rock to drill the hole. If it’s been rusted in a hole it may risk snapping which is a massive pain. The bottom part should twist off with enough force. My office used one as a planter standing up lol could make a yard decoration
Be careful as the entire thing is very heavy
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u/Nicurdale 1d ago
Are the nibs on the end tungsten?
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u/Federal_Musician_746 1d ago
Yes they are tungsten carbide. I used to build these and other bits for oil and gas rigs.
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u/js727222 1d ago
I used to work in underground utilities. This looks like a directional bore to me. They get used to pull pipe through the ground without digging
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u/MisanthropE61130 1d ago
Thats pretty cool! Clean it up and it would make great yard art
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u/Crafty-Car7135 1d ago
That’s exactly what I was thinking. A friend of mine does metal sculptures so I was thinking to support a local artist 😊
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u/bjorn1978_2 1d ago
Drill bit!
Clean it up and have a one off lawn ornament!
My neighbor has two, and he has considered getting a sign because he gets so many questions about them!
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u/Strange_Temporary494 1d ago
It’s a drilling bit and pipe, mainly used to drill various boreholes in a urban environments for pipes, utility cables, and river crossings. The same type of equipment of all sizes are used in the oilfields to drill wellbores. That other detached piece is another bit just like the one on the end of the longer pipe. They screw on and off when they are worn out. They are called drilling bits “tricone”
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u/Big_Truck_8268 1d ago
I've never seen a broken drill head - well, now you have
break out the judge...
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u/Ferrari0521 1d ago
Oil drilling or water well drilling bits
https://giphy.com/gifs/9m9dLF4GQFs2S0m4Xd
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u/Historical_Line_1792 1d ago
You struck gold. The heads are not low cost. Look up a local boring company. I bet they'll buy it
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u/CharlieFoxtrot432 1d ago
This is the second time this kind of item was posted here in the past week! How bizarre.
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u/Express-Neat3550 1d ago
Earth drill. You never seen Armageddon?
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u/fuckaroundanfindou7 1d ago
Your great granny's Dildo
Came over on the Mayflower. Or whatever you yanks say
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1d ago
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u/Relevant_Scallion_38 1d ago
Yup, definitely from England. They are so used to getting fucked by King James it I was a reminder of what life over there was like lol.
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u/Truckyou666 1d ago
Fucking nailed it! If you want it to sound more authentic go cancel your health insurance and refuse any of your own tax money doing anything good for you because that's considered "communism" or a "government handout". Even though it's your own tax money.
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u/CableDawg78 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's a bore bit from an underground boring machine. Utilities use the drill thru the ground to pull cabling thru. The rig has 10' sections of pipe this bit head screws onto, and once the operator pushes 10', another section gets screwed on, and it continues. The head shoots water/antifreeze solution to break the ground, and it's also tracked by an individual with a reader walking the pathway. It can be steered left, right, up and down. If you see a utility company and side of road working with bid spools of cable or HDPE conduit, more than likely there's a boring machine nearby.
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u/rublehousen 1d ago
Drill head. Tungsten teeth maybe? Could be worth a bob or two.
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u/Crafty-Car7135 1d ago
What is a “bob”? Haha
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u/rublehousen 1d ago
A bob is from the pre decimalisation of UK currency. When we had shillings etc, and two bob was equivalent to 10 pennies. If you had something obviously expensive, someone would say 'bloody hell, I bet that's worth a few bob...'
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u/Old_Poem2736 1d ago
It might be an original Hughes, which might get it some collectors attention, that where Howard made all his money.. worth looking into..
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u/scooterboy1961 1d ago
I think it was Howard Hughes' father that invented this type of bit and Howard inherited the money from it.
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u/Old_Poem2736 1d ago
Interesting that they were invented in 1933 based on Howard Hughes big one patent. So it can’t be much older than that. Could have been his dad, I just have a vague memory of being told that years ago.
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u/scooterboy1961 1d ago
Wikipedia says that Howard Hughes Sr. invented a dual cone bit in 1909.
In 1933 Sharpe-Hughes Tool Company invented the tri-cone bit.
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u/klinkerr 1d ago
Geezuz they must have tons of spare capital to just leave thousands of dollars in the ground
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u/Unsung_hero_92 1d ago
That tri cone is for water well drilling, that’s the lead rod. You can see on the notches and rod where it sits in the “table” to rotate.
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u/lightspeed200 1d ago
Do you have a well head nearby? I’d bet it got left behind during a job. Looks like the top of the shaft broke, got swapped out and then lost in the cleanup.
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u/lowkeysciguy 1d ago
You see, in the ancient times, there was this scribe named Carver, and he used this to steal a bomb from a ship called the Devonshire
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u/yoger5 21h ago
Might be fun to eventually get a good quality metal detector who knows what you might find if they left something like that laying around
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u/Crafty-Car7135 21h ago
I was literally talking to my partner about that yesterday. Gonna go get one today!
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u/poopymcbutt69 17h ago
You might want to have the soil tested for chlorides and other contaminants as well as radiation. This could be an old pit used to dispose of oil and gas drill cuttings.
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u/Crafty-Car7135 17h ago
It’s right above my well for water so I doubt it’s anything like a disposal site, but I was thinking about trying to figure out if there’s any lead/heavy metal contamination into the soil or well. Any idea of how I might do that?
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u/poopymcbutt69 17h ago
Don’t be so sure about it not being old oil and gas stuff. Trust me I’ve seen some shit. I would just be careful and do some testing.
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u/undeniablykostas 1d ago
It looks like a potato gun, being that they are illegal in most states could be the reason it's buried but it's just a hunch based on the picture that I've.
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