Drill Bits for Dummies

Drill bit designs

After several years of poking fun at the ridiculous and sometimes dangerously stupid twaddle published by freelancers in an endless search for pennies, you'd think that we'd get tired of it. Well, to some extent, we have: we despair that anyone will ever find accurate information about technical topics that's been pounded out by television/film graduates and English lit majors. On the other hand, it never fails to amuse us at just how silly some of the crap they published really is... so we forge on. Today, we've forged to WiseGEEK.com, where we found Paul Cartmell pretending to explain "What Is an Oil Drill Bit?"

According to Cartmell, 

"Oil drill bits that are used to create an oil well usually are manufactured as rotating equipment..."

Uhh, yeah: that's pretty much the definition of a drill bit, Paul – any drill bit. Cartmell then immediately got himself in warm water by prettily telling us that,

"These drill bits are used to move materials that are located between the Earth’s crust and the oil that lies far beneath the surface..."

...whereas others might say that a drill bit is used to make a very long, very skinny hole that reaches to a reservoir containing the oil. Like the frog in a pot of water slowly being brought to a boil, Cartmell continued to lather on the misinformation, explaining that,

• "Oil drill bits can be constructed from materials such as steel, natural diamonds, synthetic diamonds and tungsten carbide." – They're generally made of high-grade steel, Paul, with diamonds and/or carbide on the teeth. We'd love to see a 13-inch drill bit made of diamonds, ourselves...
• "Each bit is made up of at least two cones of teethed, rotating discs..." – First, the word is "toothed," and second, it's three cones, not two: a tricone bit. Plus there are several bit designs, of which that's just one...
• "[The] bit is attached to a drill string... To change a... bit... the entire drill pipe, string and bit apparatus must be removed from the well." – Paul, the "drill pipe" is the string. While we're here sis you actually think the drillers sent a mechanic thousands of feet  down a 10-inch hole to change the bit? Idjit.
• "When using rotating drill bits, a lubricating fluid must be passed through the drill pipe and onto the drill bit and rock..." – Apparently Paul didn't find out that the fluid actually passes through holes in the bit called jets. He must have figured that the pipe just pours fluid over... something.

• "Depending on the type of oil drill bit and rock being drilled, the fluid can include mud that contains chemicals, water and grease, or it can be airless, with gases used to lubricate the drilling equipment." – Contains "grease"? really? And we howled at the idea that a drilling fluid can be "airless." We repeat: Idjit!

Cartmell's is just the kind of failure of critical thinking that keeps us writing this blog in hopes that somewhere, someday, people will see freelance bullshit for what it is: the very stuff that a Dumbass of the Day is made from.

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