One of the common problems associated with Reverse Circulation Inner Tubes was the premature wear and grooving caused by the traditional O-ring sealing system. Inner Tubes with O-rings were also prone to bouncing and spinning that further reduced the overall life of the rod.

O-rings would also frequently be hooked and lost during the process of threading and unthreading rods leading to losses in air pressure. There was also a safety issue when O-rings where located in the box section of the inner tube & could not be seen, therefore drillers would sometimes have to feel if the O-ring was missing.

While the advent of urethane seals to replace the O-rings helped to maintain air pressure it did not eliminate all the movement of the Inner Tube that was the root cause of the wear.

Solution – Harlsan INLOK System

With his considerable experience in design and manufacture of RC drilling equipment, Harley Hollier from Harlsan Industries thought long and hard to develop a way to solve this problem.

Like most development, it involved a lot of trial and error combined with extensive field testing. The result was the Harlsan INLOK System for RC Rods and based on the feedback from satisfied customers it was certainly worth the effort. The Harlsan INLOK RC Rod System is an innovative solution that minimizes RC Inner tube failures, cuts maintenance and keeps your drill string drilling for longer.

The INLOK System completely locks the RC Inner tube within the body of the RC rod. This stops the inner tubes from moving either up or down, or rotating inside the rod. The elimination of movement inhibits both O-ring and seal grooving of the inner tube ends, and reduces wear to the inside rod shoulder. The problem of air bypass is also solved.

Inner Tube circlip breakages are virtually eliminated and worn Inner tubes can usually be extracted insitu in circumstances were normally the entire rod would need to be taken off the drill string. The Harlsan INLOK system can be used with O-ring or seals in a variety of commonly used thread types in the industry.

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