It's a directional boring machine. Basically it's like drilling an oil well sideways.
That eggbeater is called a back reamer it opens the pilot hole which is primarily between 4 to 8 inches to the correct diameter for whatever size pipe we pulled in. We did 1/2" all the way up to 54" pipe. The longest one I was ever on was 2400' of 16" HDPE plastic pipe. You see it more often on the smaller scale/size for fiber optic, gas, electric, and water/sewer installs. It's a super neat technology and at one time there were few people that could do it as well as we did.
I worked my way up from ditch digger when I left I was quoting jobs, ordering materials, and running crews when they needed me. Unfortunately my boss had all sorts of problems in his personal life. That ended up making my choice easier. No matter what I have to do here in the present it will never be as difficult as what I had to do there in the past.
