sand spear

Strewth Mate what a question..... so complex but I do have some experience with these... Ok you have to find the water table it may be some way down... If you live near the sea with deep sand under you sometimes you can drive the spear in with a sledge but that will at best get you 3 metres in soft sand (maybe water could be found just under the surface in a sandy creek bed... depends on a lot of factors though)If you hit a rock its game over. Usually these are put down a hole that has been bored with a rig. The quantity of water and its quality are subject to what is in the ground... The last spear I put down near Nowra gave very brackish water while one down the road was giving "spring water" and the solution was to go another 5 metres down...Usually you will get best results form a power pump as lifting water any more than a few feet by hand pump will be very frustrating. I'm dont think this would be an ideal proposition unless you made it permanent... what about pumping the water via windmill to a header tank from the creek?

I camped next to a guy at Double Island Point - Little Freshwater in January. He had a spear pump operating in his camp using a 12v pump. I think he said it went down 3 metres. The water was beautiful.

Hey Justin

We make our own and use then near large dunes and in our campsite. In our camps we have some down about 12 feet (we made special plunger to suck out the sand) and at the bottom of the dunes about 6 feet for fresh water. We use sureflo 12v pressure pumps and can spray ab out 10 meters with a hose attached. best water in the world. I have a drawning on our most recent spear about 5ft long, let me know and i can email it to you. Hardest thing is to find the stainless steel mesh required to ensure no sand get through.

cheers

Adam

Justin,
This is not going to much use to you due to the increased regulation of explosives, but we had a holiday hut (Shack) in the 1950's on the central coast of NSW. My Grandfather would drive lengths of 2 inch waterpipe into the sand. (up to 20 ft deep) The pipe had a wooden plug in the end which had a point.
After the pipe had been driven down, a half stick of Gelignit was dropped down which blew the wooden plug out of the end and formed a caven around the end of the pipe.
We used a hand operated chain pump to pump the water. Overtime the caven woul silt up, so the process was repeated.
As I say, this will not help you as I have no idea where you would get a chain pump these days.
Vince