Well trap

I have been subscribing to the magazine «Modelist-Konstruktor» since 1980, so I am a long-time reader. I have decided to write to the editorial office for the first time.

Since school I have been keen on designing and making various devices, mechanisms, and tools. Sometimes I manage to come up with and build something that you later see in the magazine and think: why didn’t I share it with others? So I am writing.

Once at my garden plot I dropped a long pole into the borehole well. I kept thinking how to get it out. But while water was still flowing, I never got around to taking action. This summer the drought lowered the water level in the well a lot, and the pole started to get in the way. That’s when I had to put my mind to it. The result was a device for extracting it.

First I found a pipe section with a smaller diameter than the well (the well’s inner diameter is 159 mm, and the pipe section’s outer diameter is 115 mm). The gap between their walls was enough for mounting the fingers, cable, and for free movement when lifting.

At the lower end of the pipe blank I made six 60 mm long cuts; I bent the resulting «petals» to a diameter of 140 mm — this formed a kind of skirt. In the pipe body I cut three 30×8 mm slots at equal spacing. On the outside I welded axles and slipped on the catch eyes (from 5 mm diameter electrode) with sharp, slightly bent ends. In the upper part of the pipe I drilled four holes for the cable, tied its ends at half a metre height. I attached a rope to the cable and lowered the device into the well.

When the device met the pole, the skirt guided its top to the centre of the pipe, to the catches. Being hinged, they first opened to let the pole through, and on the way up they bit into it so hard that I had to work to free the «captive».

I think with some modification this device could be used to lift submersible pumps, pipes and other objects dropped into the well.

«Modelist-Konstruktor» No. 2’98, A. Dodosov