The Pipe Whisperer: How a 30-Year Wireline Veteran Became the Oil Field's Best-Kept Secret

Peter Brecht00:01

All right, welcome to the local energy podcast. I am, I don't know, I have so much energy today for this conversation. Wade's here, and our guest today is John Baez, who's the Pipe Whisperer. John, that was like my first stab at saying your name properly, but I've known you as Pipe Whisperer for, I don't know, at least the last year and a half. My son's room is covered in your logo with all the stickers. So I when you sent me a pack of those, he got his hands on them. So

Wade00:05

Okay..

Peter Brecht00:28

Man, I and the thing is like when we turned on this camera for the first time, this is the first time I'd actually seen what you look like. Otherwise, it's just been this radio voice. So excited to have you on and learn what you do.

John Baez00:37

That's how it goes. A lot of people may not know my name, my actual name, but they've heard the nickname. And you know it's

Wade00:40

Okay. Thank you.

Peter Brecht00:45

I f I thought it was a I thought you were like in a non account, like you just wanted to like keep it, low profile and you do do a sense, but now you're you're out there.

John Baez00:53

Do. I don't I try not to put my my personal stuff out there but as far as like business I'm open to networking and trying to help the industry because essentially what I've done over the last 30 years was was you know passed on to me. It's not been I wasn't born doing this stuff. And a lot of the techniques and the way that I think

Comes from someone that taught me how to think. That was probably the most important thing that I learned. Now it's the hardest thing to learn because you have to imagine when you're growing up, your parents have a lot to do with what your thought processes are. And most of the time you end up being rebellious and you think against the norm and think against, what they find to be common sense. And my mentor, whenever we first started, he

Peter Brecht01:25

Mm-hmm.

Wade01:29

Mm. Okay.

John Baez01:51

Told me it's not common sense. This is uncommon sense because it just don't exist. You it has to be learned most of the time. You're not you're not born. You don't come out of the chute like he said, knowing that you're supposed to do this or do that. Someone's got to be the one to tell you. And I was fortunate enough to work for somebody that was willing to teach me. Now, it wasn't the easiest process, I can tell you that, because he would call you everything under the sun and

Peter Brecht02:12

Yeah. Wasn't the easiest to tell you that?

Wade02:13

Thank you.

John Baez02:20

Screaming, hollering, throwing stuff. And fortunately for me, that's the way I was raised with my father. I mean my father was not he was not a bashful guy. So whenever I started working with him, it was second nature. Matter of fact, when I was asked to work full time, 'cause I started part time, I asked to work full time during one of the summers. The bet was the longest bet I had was two weeks to last. They f they just knew you're you're gonna be gone.

Wade02:34

You

Peter Brecht02:48

Okay.

John Baez02:50

This guy is gonna run you off. You're you're gonna quit is what's gonna happen. And then nine years later, I outlasted everyone that was in the shop. And I ended up working for him for about 13 and a half years and he sold out and all that stuff. But we went through we went to hell and back together. And the best thing that could have happened to me, I think, was seeing things from the owner's perspective.

Peter Brecht02:53

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Wade03:02

Mm.

John Baez03:16

So I'm looking from the top down, or he would complain, this guy did this, and he doesn't understand how much this costs. And, there I am a dumb kid listening, and I'm thinking, then I ask a stupid question, well, how much does that cost? And he looks at me like he wants to strangle me, you have no idea. You know, I could tell you thousands of dollars I put into this thing, and I'm just like, I if we don't know, we don't know. But a lot of it was just people being employees. I mean, that's employee stuff. So coming up under him.

Wade03:35

Right.

Wade03:45

So.

John Baez03:45

It I have no doubt. That's why I'm where I'm at now. There's no doubt.

Peter Brecht03:51

Yeah. So I just you have a I like I can tell from talking to you and like the hours that we've talked, like just weird off the cuff, like okay, quick phone call here, quick phone call there. You've got a crazy work ethic, and you can tell by where you came from that that seems to be the case from mentorship and parents and all that. And really funny to you know bring that up. So I have a six year old son.

John Baez04:09

Yeah.

Peter Brecht04:15

And parenting, if you're a new parent, you're trying to figure out like how to do it. And the reality is, and I told my wife this, I'm like, you just kind of lead by example, but you also got to remember like your six-year-old son's probably never actually emptied a dishwasher in his entire life because it's all new to him. Doesn't matter what his chores are, right? As you gotta train that, and then eventually, you go off like you and you build explosives for the oil field. So let's talk about what you're doing. I know you've got something you've been working on as well on the software side, but I want to talk about.

John Baez04:29

Yeah.

John Baez04:37

Right.

Peter Brecht04:43

Maybe historically what you've been working on, what you've been doing, and kind of teach us maybe a little bit about the really that specific field would be awesome to just kind of get a one on one and up from there.

John Baez04:55

So what I've been doing here in the last let's just say three and a half years is I went full contract. I have a customer base of my own and I have a lot of salesmen in the field. They don't work for me. They're fishing tool hands that like to work with someone that provides results and doesn't put them in a situation where they have to try to intervene or create even more of a bigger mess. So I work for a particular group of oil companies.

Wade05:04

Okay. Okay.

John Baez05:23

I've cut the wireline companies completely out and I deal directly with the oil companies. Most of the time they don't even care whose name is on the side of the truck. As long as I'm in the truck running it, they don't care. So I've teamed up with a company called Rig Up. And when I started working with them, it was WorkRise. And they're a very large consultant firm. And the operations manager who does their turnkey projects, Dave Simon, he was stuck on a drilling rig and I went out and did some work for him in the lateral and

Peter Brecht05:39

Yeah. Yep.

John Baez05:53

It was the last day I got the ticket signed and the consultant said, my boss said, Man, we've got a pretty good wireline guy out here. Well, the guy that got me out there was Jim Humphreys. He's well he was one of my best friends, as a fishing tool hand. And he told him, you get him out here, there's not gonna be any problems. And Travis was like, I'm telling you, man, this is you you're probably the first one I've been around that's just been every question you've asked, I've asked you, you've you've had an answer for, and you've been right.

Wade05:54

Okay.

Wade06:09

Okay.

Peter Brecht06:11

Mm-hmm.

John Baez06:23

And I Well, I appreciate it. And he said, what do you do with these guys? I said, Well, I own part of this company for now. I said, But I'm thinking about going back to contract. And his exact words were, dude, you need to talk to my boss. And I said, what do you mean you mean your boss? He I work for Riga for WorkRise. He said, we have consultants all over the world, we've got, all of this, he's telling me all about the good and the bad and he said, I guarantee you my boss would pick you up in a heartbeat. So

Peter Brecht06:35

Yeah.

John Baez06:53

That's how I got back into con contract. And now I work with, five companies now. I've got RigUp, obviously, which contracts me to WSI wireline out of Snyder, Third Coast and Midland, Major Wireline in Midland, and Scientific Drilling I they build direct. But there's some companies that I build direct with that that I trust and some that I don't. The ones that if I don't know you,

Peter Brecht06:56

Okay.

Peter Brecht07:07

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht07:16

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

John Baez07:21

You're gonna have to walk the gauntlet through rig up to make this happen because rig up, they give me a fifty million dollar umbrella. So when I'm operating through them, I'm covered. And any decision that I make makes well, there's a hundred percent backing on as to what I'm doing. And that's what you want as a wireline company, number one. But number two, the operations manager, I am his wireline expert. Whenever he gets in a bind or has something

Peter Brecht07:29

Mm-hmm.

Wade07:31

Okay. Okay.

Peter Brecht07:32

Yep.

Peter Brecht07:39

Yeah.

John Baez07:50

Some special project, they'll call me and say, hey, we're looking at doing this. What do you got? And then I'll put ideas together and say, here's what we got. And I offer them services. They offer me the opportunity to build through them. And it's a pretty good synergy of a relationship. If you ask me who I work for, I work for Riga. That's my that's my backup. Number one.

Peter Brecht07:59

Mm-hmm.

Wade08:01

Okay. Thank

Peter Brecht08:08

Yeah.

Peter Brecht08:13

Yeah.

Gotcha. Yeah.

John Baez08:17

Number two, obviously it's your wife. That's you know that is. So my my work ethic, like you were saying, my father's proudest achievement is putting in 160 hours in one week. He was on a blowout. He was a transport driver. He was on a blowout and he said, We just kept hauling water. It just kept coming, we just kept hauling. And he said the guys were dropping out and dropping out, and he said, I just kept going.

Peter Brecht08:21

I hear you there.

Wade08:32

You

John Baez08:44

He said the only thing that stopped me was the cattle guard when I finally wrecked into it when I passed out. And they came and got me and drove me back to the house. That's the that's where I get my work ethic from. Working with my mentor, we've gone as long as a year with no days off. We went six months straight after that, after we took a six month hiatus, then we're back at it six months. I I've never been one to not go on a job. If I now I'm getting older, now if I'm getting tired,

Wade08:49

Thank you.

Peter Brecht08:52

Wow.

Dang.

Wade08:57

Okay. Okay.

John Baez09:13

I just get someone else to drive for me.

Peter Brecht09:15

Yeah. It's gotta feel good to be in demand, right? To have like sort of s sharpened your skills enough and to a point where, people know who you are and what you do. And I think I I think your logo is reminiscent of the Punisher, right, in some sense, right? And it's kinda got this

Wade09:28

I think I'm going to start with a question from the

John Baez09:31

Yeah. Well my my daughter's the one that did it for me. So I have I've got a Harley and I've got Willie G skulls all over and she said I couldn't find that skull but I found this one and she knew I liked to gamble so she made it look like a poker chip and then she put my thirteens that's my lucky number and then the spade 'cause I used to tell her when she was a kid, I you call this you can't change a spade. The spade's a spade once they're that way. I was trying to help her with her cousins, you know. So she said I've always remembered that that's what

Peter Brecht09:35

Okay.

Peter Brecht09:39

Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Peter Brecht09:46

There you go.

Peter Brecht09:54

Yeah, yeah.

Yep.

John Baez10:00

I remembered about you, so there it is. And when I went to teaching, that's why I ended up naming the company Pipe Whisper LLC. Because my wife is just like, we'll call it Pipe Whisper, we call you Pipe Whisper anyway. I thought, I got that logo, I'll run with it. It worked.

Peter Brecht10:02

Yeah.

Peter Brecht10:09

Love it.

Peter Brecht10:14

Yeah. Yeah. There's so many good stories behind like and I know Wade and I were talking, like every operator, non operator, they take an animal or and a color. It's always something it's like very basic, but then you some of these like the lore behind the logo is so cool. So now when I see your logo, there's like so much more meaning behind it hearing that. But like what's it like kind of I don't want to say you're you know.

Wade10:28

Thank I

John Baez10:35

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht10:40

I wouldn't liken you to like a rock star, so to speak, right? But you've got that sort of demand where people are saying, Hey, this is the guy that we want. You can be more selective. How did you get to that point? Like like what I what did you do right or what did you not do to become, who you are now? And obviously work ethics a huge part of it, but there is also a skill set and a point at which an inflection point where it's like, I actually know what I'm doing here. And that starts to get recognized.

John Baez10:43

No.

John Baez11:01

Mm-hmm.

John Baez11:09

I attribute that to my mentor. What I teach class now, what I tell everyone is if you don't understand why things happen or why we do things in a certain progression, you can't improvise when something else comes up. And you you have to imagine my mentor was me when I was coming up. Literally. I mean, he's bigger than I am. That guy's probably forgot more than I'll ever know.

Peter Brecht11:25

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht11:32

Yeah, yeah.

John Baez11:37

Just based on the experience that he came up. He was second generation. He worked for his father and his father trained him. So he'd been in this forever. And what I learned from him was again, how to think. How do you process things? People ask me, well, how did you figure that out? I'm not Tony Stark. The way I see things, I blow things up and I see them, three D images in my mind. That's what I see. But I got that from my mentor. You've got to picture this. You can't

Peter Brecht11:40

Mm-hmm.

Wade11:45

Thank Okay.

Peter Brecht11:56

The way I see things, I blow things up.

Right. Mm-hmm.

John Baez12:07

Imagine just blindly, you have to actually see the components and think about how this is going on. His first his favorite words were, Let me troubleshoot this thing. And we were working on a generator one day because it went down. And I said, You know how to work on a generator? He said, No, but well, let's think about it from the perspective of we've got fuel, we've got compression, we've got this. And it ended up being a fuel pump. I mean, of all things. That's how I learned to think. Now coming up behind him.

Wade12:14

Okay. Okay.

Peter Brecht12:30

Yeah. Sure.

John Baez12:36

He slowly started stepping back out of the field and was working with me trying to get me to take his spot and hoping that I would one day produce something, but it's not a it's not an easy skill to learn. As far as like can I get you if I trained you for four days to go out and do this? No.

Wade12:46

Okay.

John Baez13:02

You have to know how to run a wireline truck. You have to know how to run Warrior. You've got to know a certain amount of things before I can say, okay, now let's apply all this mathematics and then these technical skills I'm showing you, how these tools work, and then I can turn you loose. Whenever I started coming up with my mentor, his customers would call him directly. Well, I started getting on jobs that he would send me on because, you're not gonna send me.

Peter Brecht13:03

Yeah.

Peter Brecht13:15

Mm-hmm. Okay.

John Baez13:31

On one of your favorite customers, if I'm gonna go out there and screw it up, I'm gonna send you out with this guy. Well I'd go do a job for this company. And the company would be like, man, you did a good job. We'll call you back for the next one. That's how I ended up starting growing. And I had an old fishing tool hand named Paul Waldrop out of San Angelo tell me, he said, son, you got to remember, you're the one doing the job. He said, the name on that side of the truck is who you're protecting. He said, but you're the one they're seeing. Make sure when you're doing this job,

Wade13:37

You

John Baez14:00

You think that name is your name. And I thought, well, that makes sense. So that's how I treated it more and more. And that's what I ended up doing. Every time I worked for a wireline company, didn't matter who it was for, who what I was doing, I made sure that they felt like it was me that was out there because I'm the one doing the job. When you see results with like a medical doctor

Peter Brecht14:02

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht14:11

Yeah.

Peter Brecht14:20

Mm-hmm.

Wade14:21

I'm gonna be in here.

John Baez14:25

And your mother goes and sees him and he's got she's had really good rapport, your sister goes to over there. That's what it ends up becoming. I'm not a doctor. I just get you positive results and people start passing that around. Hey, call this guy. We had pretty good luck with him. Let's see if we can get him out there. That's how I got to where I'm at. Literally. The sandwich deal back down here with all these rigs, like I said they had like forty eight rigs down here. That was probably the biggest help that I'd had since

Peter Brecht14:41

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Brecht14:51

Mm-hmm.

John Baez14:55

Anything because most of those consultants when they split and that company finally got out of here, all of those customers that I was working for became my customers. They just carried on. I actually got stranded down there for a good while and I started losing work. I was like, Man, I can't go anywhere. I'm having a drive back and forth from the bar nap. I had a company up there that I was working for that would call me and I'd be like, Man, I'm down here in Fort Stockton. We'll just wait on you. Man, it's like a six hour drive.

Wade15:00

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht15:06

Yeah.

Peter Brecht15:12

Wow.

Wade15:16

Bigger than that one.

John Baez15:24

Just to get back to Snyder to get, supplies and then head that direction. It would they would wait twelve hours for me to get over there. And then I'd be over there and then d Sanders would call and say, Hey, well, where you at? Well, I'm in I'm outside of Denton. I'm looking at the golf course right now. You you golfing? I said, No, I'm on a drilling rig. I said, I can't I'm stuck out here. Well, when are you gonna be done? I man, I don't know. We'll just wait on you. We'll jar on it for another twelve hours and then we'll call you back. And I'm thinking

Peter Brecht15:24

Yeah.

Peter Brecht15:28

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Peter Brecht15:37

Yeah.

Wade15:39

Okay.

Peter Brecht15:46

Yeah.

John Baez15:51

Well, we've been up for two days out here. Now I gotta drive twelve hours to get back over there.

Peter Brecht15:57

I'm envisioning a pipe whisperer helicopter where you can just really quickly bounce between sites. I think that'd be perfect for you, in in the future. Yeah.

John Baez16:01

Then

John Baez16:05

I've had people tell me that. It's just nah that that's why I created the software. It's getting to that point where I can take that software and I can run this thing online if you have problems. But I've gotta get more out of it. Essentially what I wanna do is build a complete free point system where I can operate it from anywhere, even on my phone. It's coming. It's not here yet, but it's coming. And I'm having to do all this out of my pocket. I don't

Wade16:08

Thank

Peter Brecht16:15

Wow.

Wade16:19

Thank you. Okay.

Peter Brecht16:20

Yeah.

Peter Brecht16:26

Hm. Wow.

Peter Brecht16:30

Yeah.

John Baez16:33

I just don't want any outside interference or someone trying to push me to release something that I know is not gonna be what I would run.

Peter Brecht16:40

I like it. Well we'll talk we'll get into the software piece. What I really want to understand for me, because I got questions just because I'm just curious about how all this works. Why does a company call you right now? So they obviously get something stuck, but could you walk us through the reason they're calling you and maybe the situation that they have that they're saying, look, John can get this solved for us? Like what is that phone call like?

John Baez17:06

Well, so essentially if you're in a drilling operation like this company that's k trying to get a hold of me right now,

Right now they're stuck. They've got a bit sticking right outside of the casing. They've got an agitator at eighteen hundred feet. And the motor is spinning free. They can't get it loose. Yeah, they may try surface jar, but they're too deep from what I can see on this text messages, but that's what it becomes. Now we're in a hurry. We need something done quickly. And I've got a fishing tool hand out there with a buddy of mine who's telling them this is the guy you want.

Wade17:27

Thank you. Okay.

Peter Brecht17:33

Mm-hmm.

John Baez17:44

Because it's spinning right now. I can there's things I can still do with this that you know Yeah. I can back them off. In in a back office when you unscrew the pipe, you use an explosive charge to do it. You have to imagine we apply just enough left hand torque just before the point that it unscrews on its own. We apply just enough torque and then we apply that s explosive shot, and that's actually what jars that connection loose.

Wade17:47

Thank you. Thank you.

Peter Brecht17:49

Hmm.

Peter Brecht18:11

Mm-hmm.

John Baez18:13

Then I've got plasma cutters. There's other things we can do with this thing, to get where they can go in with jars and try to fish it out.

Peter Brecht18:23

The plasma cutter thing, th like you've posted about that on LinkedIn, and I you might have made a comment on our TikTok page as well about it. But w what is like what does that do? I mean it sounds it sounds pretty Tony Stark to me. So like what like what is that exactly?

Wade18:33

Okay.

John Baez18:36

It man, I did not create this thing. This is I've been working with the Chalmus family since the beginning of my career. I was literally when I first started we were dressing chemical cutters, which is a bromine trifluoride cutter. And the guy's uncle, Eddie Chamos or Chalmus, was the guy that developed that cutter. So

Peter Brecht18:52

Mm.

John Baez19:02

Fast forward, now his nephew's in business for himself, it's called Chama's Cutter, and his son is now working with him. They contacted me a few years ago. I was working for another company and said, Hey, we're we've got this thermite based cutter and it ends up when you ignite it, it forces that torch. It's basically a thermite torch that burns that pipe in two. It's a cutting torch. And it comes out seven thousand.

Wade19:26

I'm to

Peter Brecht19:27

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

John Baez19:32

Degrees at 15,000 PSI is what I've been told. And it's instantaneous. There was another company that had one before MCR. They called it the RCT or radio cutting torch. And they're they've been in that game, I think, a little bit longer than anybody else, but like I said, the reason why I stuck with the Chamas cutters is because I've been running their chemical cutters for decades, literally. The

Peter Brecht19:35

Mm-hmm.

Interesting.

Peter Brecht19:58

Yeah. Okay.

John Baez20:01

The Chalmus plasma cutter is has got some points in it that are really, really good. You can you can really push that cutter to make some cuts on some large tubers with small OD cutters, which is helpful, but especially if you're you've got fishing tools or you've got a work string that's got a small ID in it. The first time that I used it, I actually put him through the ringer. He'd come out with an electric anchor, because the electric anchor holds the cutter in place before it.

Peter Brecht20:16

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht20:22

Yeah.

John Baez20:31

And I called Mark. I said, Hey, you said you had the plasma cutter. You got that anchor already? He said, Well, yeah, we just got through with it, but we haven't tested it. I said, Send it to me. I'm gonna put it to the test. And he's like, What? I said, I've got a job for a company over here that has an X in its name, and they really, really want me to do this. And he's kinda like, Well, how deep are we working? 15,000 feet? He's like, only you would call me with something like this. I said, But Bubba, I wouldn't stick it in the hole if it didn't have your name on it.

Peter Brecht20:50

Yeah, yeah.

Wade20:55

Yeah.

Peter Brecht21:01

Ha ha.

John Baez21:01

You believe in your product or not? I believe in your product. Let's do it. So we go in the hole, we make three cuts. Make the first one, it doesn't come because it's stuck. We go in, make a free point, run, we see where it's stuck, we cut it, it comes right out. And when it comes out, it's beautiful. I mean, I've still got the video with a fishing tool hand that was out there just like, man, this is a beautiful cut. The instance of being

Peter Brecht21:10

Mm-hmm.

John Baez21:28

Able to improvise is these guys know the mathematics behind the pressure and the hydrostatic pressures and all that stuff versus the thermite. I'm not that guy. I if have a question, I call Mark. I say, hey man, I've got this tubular. Well what's the wall thickness? What's your hydrostatic pressure? They do the math and they say, let's I I'd run this. The other day they were able to make a cut in the Gulf for I can't remember what the old company was, but they actually cut five and a half with a two inch OD cutter. They went through

Wade21:37

Mm hmm.

Peter Brecht21:55

Hm.

John Baez21:56

A small ID and made it cut. Now, I don't know if you ever would get into this business, but that's pretty unheard of. A jet cutter for five and a half is four and a half. Or you might get as small as three point eight, but to run a two inch OD cutter and get this pipe cut, I mean that's a big deal. You know, I wasn't the one that did it. I advertised on LinkedIn and I put it on on TikTok or one Messias put one together for me as well.

Peter Brecht22:05

Hm.

Peter Brecht22:25

Yeah.

John Baez22:26

And it was like just in awe of what Chama's cutters had had achieved. We've been really, really working together with a lot of them. They're cutters. I've from what I'm told I run more than anybody in yet of the Chama Cutters, but I've had really good luck with them. Lateral, upside down, sideways, you name it, they'll they'll cut it. You just have to have the right anchor to make it work.

Wade22:42

Okay. Okay.

Peter Brecht22:55

Gotcha. It's a band. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean that's the I love the independent, like there's that sort of like the get it done mentality, the we can be creative, we can get this done faster. All that plays into it. I'm imagining, Wade, that if you called John here, you have a problem.

John Baez22:57

It's a family business and to me that means a lot, to be honest. But it also helps when the product delivers.

John Baez23:14

Yeah.

Wade23:18

Yeah, well, I was going to say that every conversation, just like John is saying, I got a couple of guys on, saved in my contact list and the conversation is usually at two in the morning and they're like, how's it going? And I'm like, well, it's not going well whenever I'm calling you, you kind of, feels like going to the dentist, you know what I mean? It's one of those, it's like, hey, hey, it's really nice to talk to you, but I wish I didn't have to, kind of a deal.

John Baez23:37

Yeah.

John Baez23:41

That's it.

Peter Brecht23:47

Mm-hmm.

John Baez23:48

That's why I don't make sales calls.

Wade23:50

A couple years ago, it's funny you talk about Chalmers cutters because I had to run Chalmers cutters in 5.5 drill pipe. It was Christmas of 2022 or 2023. We had 5.5 inch drill pipe that was literally parting at 220 hook load, no torque, nothing. It was just this...

John Baez24:02

Ac yeah, I got a question on that job. I'm trying to remember.

Wade24:16

It was a, you could tell it was just like this, it wasn't like a plastic deformation, like where it stretched and then broke. I mean, it was just literally, we were working tight hole at about 8,000 feet and we were pulling up at 220, which actual pipe weights like, you 170, 180 right there. It was just parting and we ended up having to run a Chalmers cutter in there to get our string up.

John Baez24:34

Yeah.

John Baez24:42

Did y'all get the cut after all? Yeah.

Wade24:44

Yeah, yeah, we did. And like you said, it was super clean. We needed a clean top on it so that we could go back down and jar on it and everything. I think we finally put that Chalmers cutter in there. We had had two or three of those parts at a really low, really low string weight. And so when you were saying that, I was like, I'm pretty familiar with being able to, because in drill pipe, we don't have that smooth ID. We've got some constrictions. And so it was.

John Baez25:09

Mm-hmm. Yeah, the tool joints always end up being smaller. I mean the most common is like four inch ID, but I just got off a job where they had a three and a half ID in it. And it's if you don't have a s a small enough cutter to get in and make the cut, you could be in a bind.

Wade25:13

Yeah.

Wade25:24

You really, yep, you really get limited. And so it was, I remember that job very well. So.

John Baez25:30

Got a call on that. Someone had asked me, Have you cut five and a half with this thing yet? And I I'm like, Yeah, I mean it it'll do it. What are you trying to do? He said, Well, this thing's falling apart on a man. We pick up on it. They pick up to like 260,000 as part. That's what they told me is 260. And I said, Well, I ran into an H2S well here the other day and I tried to talk to operator to doing it, and they decided to run the welltech electric cutter because it had four inch ID tool joints.

Wade25:38

Right.

Wade25:55

Okay. Okay.

John Baez25:57

I said, but they got three overshots in the hole. And, of course he starts laughing. I think that's what they got out there. I said, Well, you could run either, but if it were me, I'd run the plasma cutter. That way you don't you don't have to pull that much.

Wade26:08

I did, we had parted that pipe, we got an overshot over it, and then it parted again above our overshot. And so we ended up having two overshots in there. We ended up actually getting all the overshots out. We never got to fish out because the pipe kept on parting on us, but we ended up getting a lot of that back. That's hilarious. I'm really starting to wonder if you were, if we had conferenced in with you on that phone call. I'm gonna try and keep, yeah.

John Baez26:21

Yeah. Right.

John Baez26:29

Yeah. Someone talked to me about it. I'm trying to remember who it was, but they were asking me questions about it. Yeah. And of course

Wade26:37

Well, well, but yeah, the cutter was great. I mean, it was like whenever it came out, my gosh, was just a great cut on there. Was, super, super.

John Baez26:46

Yeah. Yeah. So the there's the flip side, not talking bad about MCR, but MCR has a two and a half inch XRT. Their cutter has windows in it. And there's little pieces of steel that hold the bottom half of that cutter together. So when you fire this cutter, it doesn't melt off and drop it in the hole. If you tried to do that with that pipe, you wouldn't have been able to get the cut because it leaves four little tabs.

Wade27:03

Right.

Wade27:12

Right.

John Baez27:14

I equate to this. If you remember the Japanese when they dropped the atomic bomb in Japan, they still have marks of people that were standing there where the shadows on the sidewalk. It does the same thing with the thermite. If there's not a continuous port, you're gonna have those shadows that you're not gonna get that full cut with. Shamus cutters has got a continuous port on every one of their cutters, and we like I said, we have been able to make some really, really amazing cuts.

Peter Brecht27:25

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's same thing with the thermostat.

Wade27:37

Right.

John Baez27:44

Because of that. We don't have to try to pull it in two. It's in two. Even if it's stuck, you can make a cut. And of course you gotta be careful about what you're cutting in. You don't want to do this in sand, but if it's just like limestone or something like that, you can make that cut and it'll be there. But you'll have to jar it in two after you get latched onto it, after you get your free cut up here. But it it is possible to get it.

Peter Brecht27:48

Wow. Even if it's stuck, you can make it

Wade27:49

Yep.

Wade27:54

Right.

Wade28:04

Right.

Peter Brecht28:07

Wow.

Wade28:07

Right.

That's crazy. It's a small world, Good to talk to you again. Under different circumstances this time.

John Baez28:13

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know how it is. I get all of the crap calls. When last resort's on, I get calls from like Utah or I've got a call. The other day I was answering phone call for someone in PA and it was like, I'm just answering questions and not trying to get involved 'cause I'm not going up there.

Peter Brecht28:13

It's good to talk to you.

Wade28:37

Run.

Peter Brecht28:43

So speaking of not having to move around too much, I know you're working on a software program and we kind of alluded to it. I think if I'm not mistaken, you're working on this with your son as well. Is that is that right?

John Baez28:49

Mm-hmm.

John Baez28:55

Yep. Yeah, so originally when we got this thing, I had a I had hired a contracted a programmer to come up with this thing. And I found someone that had a interface that I could use. So I've started playing with it and we figured out that we could make it work. So I had them design it. And we were gonna use I can't remember if it was Android or s we were gonna use someone else's platform that would allow us to stream it.

Wade29:19

Mm-hmm.

John Baez29:25

And I'm telling my sons, 'cause I've got both my boys working with me, but I'm telling my sons and like, Man, this is gonna be great, or you know and then we get nearly all the way to the end and the programmer says, Yeah, we can't do that like that. They're not gonna let us do that. They've the I mean, you just can't do it that way and I thought

Wade29:32

You

John Baez29:43

Okay, well great. Glad I spent all this money on this thing. I mean, this is just, awesome. And of course he was just like, Man, there's gotta be another way you could figure it out and I'm leaving Fort Worth, and I'm upset and I'm talking to my son and my son finally says, Dad, why don't we just use Discord? And I thought the messaging app that we've been using? He said, Yeah. He said, Man, we can stream it all on there. I mean it it's it's it it would work and I thought

Wade29:47

No kidding.

Peter Brecht30:02

Mm-hmm.

Wade30:04

Huh.

Peter Brecht30:06

Yeah. Yeah.

John Baez30:13

Okay. I mean let me get it out first and let's try it. That's what we've been doing. We and him were using it, my my son and Odessa were using it for a messaging app because he had a he really wanted this phone that he got and of course the for some reason whenever you got it and put it on Verizon text messages didn't work with it. So he said, Let's just use Discord, I'll message you on that. So I got to playing with that and not I'm not a gamer or anything like that. He is.

Peter Brecht30:16

Yeah. Wow.

Wade30:22

Mm.

Peter Brecht30:31

Mm-hmm.

John Baez30:41

And that's what he uses. He builds the what do you call them? Here I my old man. He does the platforms for a bunch of other kids that have their gamer forms. Hey, we've we want to have a tournament. He'll set up stuff for them and put them all in and he'll run the whole chat as they're playing and they can watch or do whatever they're doing. So it's no different for him than what I'm doing. And what I'm doing is actually lower stress for him because he's just like, I'm just adding people.

Peter Brecht30:56

Mm-hmm.

Wade31:02

Ram.

Peter Brecht31:02

Yeah. It's no different for now.

John Baez31:10

And putting them in and muting them and making sure that nobody gets in your way. They're just able to watch the free point. My next my next rendition with this with my panel and with my free point that I'm building is gonna be fully controlled. So we're maybe switching to a different platform. But if you're wanting to stream and your customer wants to see this, like wait, if I was doing a job for you down here.

Peter Brecht31:16

Wow. Huh.

Peter Brecht31:29

Okay.

Wade31:35

Wait, so you're saying like, you're gonna be in the van, the wireline van or wireline truck and I'll be able to, I've always thought like one of the great things, on the rig, I was gonna say on the rig, like being able to see my pace on feed is in able for me, right? So being able to see that from the wireline plus also to have that direct communication would be amazing. I've got a rig right now that I just picked up a couple of weeks ago.

John Baez31:43

Mm-hmm. Yep.

John Baez31:50

You can watch it on your phone.

Wade32:05

And it's funny, I thought at first, I thought it was like a novelty type deal. They were talking about cameras and they've got cameras all over the rig, you know? And I told them, said, well, if you put one of those on the shakers, like I might not be able to pull myself away from it. And sure enough, I'll tell you like, the amazing thing is, is like just the other night we were having some whole issues, you know? And so like my consultant, he's up on the rig floor, he's right over the driller's shoulder, they're constantly talking and they're, watching the pipe and watching all their gauges and everything.

Peter Brecht32:11

And I told him I said well.

John Baez32:17

Mm-hmm.

Wade32:35

But I'm at the house, I've got my earbud in, I'm on a direct line with him and I can see my Pason right here and then my TV to the left, I'm watching the Shakers because he can't see the Shakers from the rig floor, you know what I mean? And so I'm like, oh, well there's a burp of flow and here we're seeing, this is what we're seeing over there and all that instead of having to have hands over there sending us videos and all that stuff. So it's pretty amazing, man, being able to bring that technology and being able to do a lot of that stuff. I love that idea.

John Baez32:41

Yep. Yep.

John Baez33:02

So we we've been able to put cameras out for the weight indicator and then the pipe. So you can actually watch your torque as you're applying it. You can see the torque gauges, you can see the pipe as it's moving, watching the weight indicator. And it helps me in the truck too, because I I'll set up screen up where I can watch it as we're applying the stretch and the torque and then you can actually see the free point live as it's going.

Wade33:10

Okay.

Right?

Wade33:23

Right?

Well, and I was gonna say that's a really cool deal. Cause I mean, there's been a lot of times I've been sitting in the wireline van and I've got my pace on up because I'm watching their pump rate, and all that stuff. So instead of having to use the radios and go back and forth and inevitably, miscommunication or whatever, you know what I mean? There's a lot of different things. So me sitting in the truck with my iPad up being able to say, yeah, we're pumping four barrels a minute or whatever, and see the speed.

John Baez33:50

Well the cool thing is as well, you can message while you're doing this. The customer can the let's just say the boss in East Texas is watching. He can message on there and say, Hey, what happened there? Or what are we doing? And you can respond immediately. Not really.

Wade33:55

Right?

Peter Brecht33:59

You can ask on there and say, Hey, what would I

Wade34:02

But does that make you, does all this make you nervous though? I mean, now you got, now you got a gallery of six people behind you watching you, too many cooks in the kitchen.

John Baez34:10

It man, it's not I've been fortunate. I don't have someone standing there asking me a million questions. And this thing dumbs it down to the point of you've got a colored bar chart, red is stuck, orange is stuck, yellow you you really don't want to mess with. When it starts seeing green, you start seeing green in that bar chart, everything's good. You'd be amazed how many times the questions just fall off once they see it, then it becomes, Okay, now we know what's going on.

Wade34:30

Run.

Wade34:38

Gotcha. And then understanding him.

John Baez34:40

I I've tried to make it as easy to understand. If you're running a logarithmic tool like the spring tool, it doesn't work in percentages. Yeah, my tools when I set up, I aim for a certain range of where I want to see the tool opening. But if it if I'm at five thousandths of an inch open, I'm aiming for fifty-two points. The spring tool advantage is that this coil is made

Wade34:48

Huh.

John Baez35:11

To give you fifty percent of the deflection on your meter from zero to a hundred, fifty percent of that is in the first five thousandths of an inch. And it was designed for drill collars. Now imagine trying to explain, well we were getting 85 points up hole, now we're in this drill collar and we're seeing 30, that's stuck, right? No, it's not. We're supposed to get about 48. That's it's restricted. With the software, I input the data of where these ranges are going to be because I can calculate what readings I'm gonna get before I even get whole

Peter Brecht35:19

Now imagine trying to explain that we were getting eighty five point

Wade35:23

Right.

Wade35:29

Right.

Wade35:40

Right.

John Baez35:40

Mathematically, I can type them in, arrange the set and drop in, and then it's spitting out colors. I just switch between the tubulars that I'm free pointing and they're watching it and it's like, this is easy to understand. It cuts all the questions out. Yeah. Because you have to imagine if you're free pointing, let's just say you're five and a half drill pipe, if I'm applying forty thousand pounds overpull, depending on which tool I use, you're you're gonna get seventeen thousandths of an inch overpull.

Wade35:48

Right.

Wade35:53

Got different. That's awesome.

John Baez36:09

In of opening between my tool. Now, when I drop into an eight inch drill collar, if I pull a hundred thousand pounds over, I'm gonna get five thousandths of an inch. And then I s I still have to argue with the engineers every now and then, well, you can't really stretch drill collars. I've been doing it all my life. I I've Yeah, I've even seen eleven inch drill collars stretch. So I mean and they'll torque.

Wade36:15

Yeah, my dear.

Right.

Wade36:28

You apply enough, it'll move a little bit. Just a lot less.

Wade36:35

But it's, and see with ours, like a lot of our drillings with four inch drill pipes. So the stretch on four inch drill pipe, you kind of got to be careful the other way, right? You're like, it moved a lot, you know?

John Baez36:43

Right. Well so there's a constant that I use for that, but for like for that I think I'm using twenty thousand over twenty thousand pounds. Doesn't sound like a whole lot, but we're anchored in the pipe and we're reading just what's in between our anchors. And this is a mo motorized tool. This is essentially I don't know you can see that, that's essentially what you're you're seeing.

Wade36:55

Right.

John Baez37:10

When one end is anchored in the pipe, the other end's anchored in the other end, and you apply that stretch, you're seeing that. And then you're applying torque, that's what you're seeing. And of course, that's the motorized tool it has. This one's an old school coil style. There's a magnet on the end of this one, and this coil is sitting there, and it's reading the magnetic flux from that magnet. Now, once you calibrate this tool to zero, when you pull it open, you'll get a deflection.

Peter Brecht37:17

Then you're fine four. That's what you're seeing.

Wade37:34

Mm-hmm.

John Baez37:39

Based on how much you're over pulling is going to be what your flexion is. And you're using that panel to capture that deflection. So if I want a lower sensitivity, I'll pull a little bit more because it'll be a higher frequency shift. And then I'll capture it between zero to a hundred. And then if I want you know higher, if I can't get enough out of it like a drill collar, if I'm just reading drill callers to drill callers, you can pull.

Wade38:03

You

John Baez38:08

A lot more you can pull a lot less, whatever that deflection is, as long as you're calibrating in free pie, you're just taking that number and going down the string to try to prove where it's stuck. We're just it's like scientific method. There's nothing scientific about this. But whatever strain you apply to this tubular, as long as you apply the same strain from here to here, when you find that stuck point it's going to be different.

Wade38:17

Right.

Wade38:34

Right.

John Baez38:38

I mean there's really no magic to this. It's not black magic. With the

Peter Brecht38:43

It sure looks like it sure looks like magic to someone that's hearing about it and how it works. It's amazing.

John Baez38:48

Well the fun part was when I first started this, I love mathematics. And my mentor was telling me, because he tell me, Hey, come here and calculate this for me, Mr. Mathquiz, and I'd calculate whatever he's telling me. And then I was starting paying attention to these equations and I'm like, dude, this is like physics. I wanted to teach physics, you know. And I thought, This is well wait a minute, wait a minute.

Wade39:02

Yeah

John Baez39:13

You're telling me that you guys are really calculating this and he just Yeah, what's wrong with that? I mean you're actually I mean, right, this is the fun part. You're actually using the equations and we're seeing the results here. So when I started seeing all this and started really paying attention, it it it grabbed me. I mean, this is one hundred percent, this is what hooked me was being able to use the mathematics and the algebra that I'd learned even in high school and going into college. I thought, This is what I want to do. This is

Wade39:35

You

John Baez39:42

This is badass to me. We were on a job and snowing, sleeted, it rained. I mean, it was it was horrible weather conditions. And my mentor's walking by me as I'm breaking a tool out, and he says, Don't be a fool, stay in school. And I looked back at him, I said, Man, man, I like this stuff. This is to me, this is badass. And he says, he just kind of looked at me like, This kid's crazy. So the more that that I started asking questions, you know.

Wade39:44

Okay.

Peter Brecht40:03

Yeah. Yeah. So the more that that I started asking questions, if

John Baez40:10

It became to him like I think maybe this kid's this guy's serious. Maybe he's gonna stick with it. Thirty years in it, man, I'm not going anywhere. And again, I'm too stupid to do anything else. I mean, I can't drill a well. I can't drill a well. I really can't. I cannot drill a well. I didn't write the program to the code. I'm learning code now. Now I'm taking online courses to learn code because I'm interested in how all that stuff works, but you know

Peter Brecht40:23

I doubt that. I doubt that.

Peter Brecht40:32

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

John Baez40:39

This is when it comes to my little world of the fishing industry and with wireline involved, and I'm talking like pipe recovery, not fishing cable or any of that other stuff. In my little world, I always try to do homework on everything. If I'm sitting at home and I'm not on a job, you can ask my wife, she thinks I'm crazy. I'm looking stuff up, I'm watching videos, I'm constantly searching for the next thing or something that stimulates me, that makes me think, and then it's like

Wade40:47

Okay.

Peter Brecht40:50

Yeah.

Wade41:07

Awesome. Thank

John Baez41:08

I wonder how that works this way. What is this, how d how does that work? I'll do my research and try to figure out anything that I can about it. Like I always tell my students. Sorry, go ahead. If I don't know something, is I don't know, but I'll find out. I'm not gonna blow any smoke up your ear trying to convince you that I know all or see all. Everything in my little world.

Peter Brecht41:15

Yeah. It's No, go ahead. No, you're good, you're good.

John Baez41:38

I know it. Anything outside of that, I I'm if I don't know, I'll ask. If I've got an idea, I'll make a comment. Kind of like how we first got interacting. If I see something and I something is said wrong, I'm not saying something to correct somebody to be mean. I'm trying to make sure that they understand this is the correct thought process. I don't teach at Top Gun for ego. I teach at Top Gun to try to help

Peter Brecht41:58

I don't teach

John Baez42:06

The wireline industry and help bring a little more knowledge into the world so that these guys can go out and be successful.

Wade42:09

It's awesome. We need all the good trained wireline hands we can get, They gotta bail us out sometimes.

Peter Brecht42:14

Yeah. I love it. It's a

John Baez42:15

That's the my main goal.

John Baez42:20

It it's pretty thick out there.

So I call it the wolves of pipe recovery. The wolves of Wall Street, or that guy's sitting there selling him a line of crap, and he's doing this on the phone, and he's talking crap and everybody back there laughing and he's selling this up. That's what you end up with. And you've got a smooth talking kid who's got a good personality. He don't know what the hell he's doing. And he's selling you on something that he saw. I equate it to the dartboard.

Wade42:32

Okay.

Peter Brecht42:32

Yeah.

Peter Brecht42:40

Yeah.

John Baez42:55

And not all of them are like this. I mean a lot of these kids can get by with experience, but this is why. Imagine standing in front of a dart board with a big handful of darts and you got a blindfold on. You throw a dart over here, it don't work. You throw a dart over here, it don't work. Up here, down here, and you start hitting the board. And then you're you're close. That's what you got. Someone who's hitting the board enough and they're in that realm.

And they've got an idea of what they're doing. And they get results. If things shift outside of their understanding, remember if you don't understand why, you cannot adapt. Those are the guys that end up finding out, just how much they know. I've replaced companies before that that were completely they're right there, not being mean.

Wade43:35

Hmm

Peter Brecht43:39

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht43:44

Yeah.

John Baez43:54

They were right there. They just didn't understand that you had to have fluid inside the pipe to get a back off. Just a simple question. Mind you, I'm the third guy out there and I'm asking questions. And the guy's like, what do you need to know that for? Well, I'm these are the questions that I have. I've got all written down here, okay? I'm just going down my list to get And then the guy's laughing about it and he's answering my questions. And I'm looking at the pipe and they've got a full stand sticking up in the air. I can't get a tool in there.

Wade44:00

Right.

Peter Brecht44:00

Hm.

John Baez44:23

The tool joints twenty six foot up in the air and they were near surface. They can't pull it up high enough to set the slips out to break it out. And I tell the guy, let me just back that off right there and just get those two joints out of the way. And then they're all looking at me like, What? I said, Yeah, let me just back that off right there. We'll just put a string shot in there from the top. I can get a string shot in the car locator in there. I can't get a free point in there. And he just kind of Huh. Okay, you wanna do that? That's fine.

Wade44:29

Can't get stretch, yeah.

Peter Brecht44:36

Hmm.

John Baez44:53

And the first thing I said was, we gotta pump some fluid though. What for? String shots don't work without fluid. And they lost their minds. You gotta be kidding me. You mean we've been shooting down here. We knew this thing was on a vacuum. There ain't no fluid in that hole. And I'm just laughing. I'm going, man, again, I just got here. I don't have any frame of reference as to what anyone else did. I'm going based off of specifically what the questions that I asked.

Wade45:19

Yep.

John Baez45:20

And this is information that I ask every well that I go to because I don't want to get bit. And I'm first call out there now. They never even heard of me. Now it's just one of those things. You have to understand why. You have to understand the why in order to be able to adapt or see what's going on.

Peter Brecht45:27

Yeah.

Peter Brecht45:31

That's awesome.

One of those things. Yeah.

Wade45:36

Everybody's got stories like that.

Peter Brecht45:38

I love it.

Peter Brecht45:42

I love it. Well, John, I man, I I'm just thankful that you were willing to come on. I didn't think that this episode was gonna ever happen. And here we are talking. You got to get reintroduced to Wade. Hopefully you guys don't have to Wade's not calling you. Maybe it's the other way around. But I just

John Baez45:59

Ha ha ha.

Wade46:01

This is one of the best conversations I've ever had with a fish in hand. I mean, come on.

Peter Brecht46:05

Yeah. Yeah. No. Totally. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So anyways, I just I really appreciate you coming on. I love your obsession with what you're doing. I think any one of us that's loves what we do and can like kind of show people through action and just the even, obsession with anything off the clock and how many how much time do you still spend studying and learning. So

John Baez46:05

Yeah, well i and this is free, you know what I mean? This is not he doesn't have to sign a ticket at the end of this day, you know.

Wade46:09

Exactly.

Peter Brecht46:32

Thank you for being a huge supporter of me, of Wade, as we've kind of gotten this pot little podcast going, even though it was just, comments on TikTok went a long way and just being an educator there too. So anyways, I hope you have an amazing day. I hope you go find what you need. If you guys want to get in touch with John, I will have his contact info will be in the comments below and the link below. But yeah, ask questions. John is he's in it every day and just really appreciate being here. So

Wade46:43

Awesome.

Peter Brecht46:59

Yeah, until next week, thank you guys for listening to Local Energy and we'll see you soon. Thanks.

John Baez47:06

Yes sir.

Wade47:06

Thanks,