Core Catcher Procedure
Removing the core catcher material is generally done by a designated technician. Every core recovered has a core catcher at the bottom of the core barrel. The core catcher is removed on the rig floor and passed to the designated technician. The technician must extrude all core material from the core catcher and placed in a core liner (guidelines and rules listed below). That 'Section' of core is called the CC (core catcher).
Below are a series of steps to help guide you through the Core Catcher (CC) procedure.
...
Personal protective equipment (PPE) shall include: hardhat, safety glasses, gloves (work gloves may should be preferred worn because there may be sharp bits on the outer shoe and many pinch points, chemical gloves can be worn underneath), hearing protection.
Optional
PPE may include: apron or rain coat.
Arbor Press
If the Core Catcher material is difficult to manually push out from the core catcher, use the Arbor Press (see Figure 4 and Figure 5). There is a jig that can be used to assist with the pushing either APC and one for XCB ((Figure 6). Lubricate the moving parts of the arbor press with Lubriplate, or a mixture of Lubriplate and Marvel Mystery Oil.
NOTE: Do not let the square rod penetrate to far into the shoes. The teeth of the shaft get stuck inside the shoe. If it gets stuck, try the wider spatulas. If all else fails you can remove the gear box cover.
There are two sides to the toothed, square rod that moves through the press. One has a longer end portion without teeth. Does your bit not fit? The end with the longer portion without teeth, must be on top. This sometimes gets flipped when opening the press for servicing. You should be able to retract the rod all the way into the press' gearbox.
See Figure 7 below.
Maintenance
Lube the press and chain vice.
Remove rust from tools.
Grind the hammer end of the tools when they begin to mushroom.
Figures
Figure 1: Extruding core catcher material at the core catcher bench; notice the Paleontologist waiting with white bowl – give PAL sample to paleontologist.
...
Figure 3: Core catcher material in Core Liner
Figure 4: Arbor Press
Figure 5: Metal disc for pushing on core material
Figure 6: APC Jig
...
Figure 7: Toothed Square Rod, Proper Configuration
XCB Core Catcher 
Use a strap wrench to remove the XCB cutting shoe. Take the cutting shoe to the press and place it top side down in the APC jig on the press. Press out the material (this may be hard, it gets baked in sometimes).
Try to remove the sleeve from inside of the sub by banging the the sub on the table (notice the dents in the table). A piece of thick wood can also be used to bang the sub. The sleeve should move down the sub and sometimes will come out. If the sleeve will not come out then strap the sub in the vice and hammer it the rest of the way out. Note that the flange on the sleeve is the top of core.
Place the top flange of the sleeve in the APC jig and press the core material out.
If the press is unavailable the old XCB sleeve tool needs to be used to get the inner rings out of the sleeve. Note that the sleeve must be turned around on the chain vice to get the lip of the flange to catch the vice and be stable. Wet the tool.
The core can now be pushed or pressed out of the inner rings. Maintain orientation at all times, always push or press from the bottom. Assemble the core catcher in the liner as described above.
RCB Core Catcher
Credits
The original document was created by the shipboard technical party.
Archived Versions
- Core Catcher Assembly 397T 2022-09-28
- Core Catcher Assembly 378S 2020-02-23
- Core Catcher Assembly_374.docx was the last pre-wiki version.