Melfred Borzall’s Tri-Con™ System: Faster Changeovers. Stronger Connections. Built for the Realities of HDD.
In HDD, time is rarely lost in big, dramatic failures. It’s lost in the small, repeated delays—seized threads, slow tooling changeovers with tight pits, worn connections that don’t seat cleanly, and the extra minutes crews spend fighting equipment instead of drilling. The Tri-Con™ system was developed to address exactly those friction points.
At its core, Tri-Con replaces traditional threaded connections with a rounded triangular, threadless interface secured by heavy-duty coiled pins. The design eliminates cross-threading, reduces wear at the connection point, and significantly shortens tool swap time. In field testing, full changeovers from pilot bore to pullback have been completed up to four times faster than conventional setups. For crews working in constrained jobsite conditions—even as narrow as 18-inch-wide pits—that difference is measurable.
Speed alone is not an advantage. Connection integrity matters just as much. The Tri-Con connection distributes load across broad mating surfaces rather than concentrating stress along thread engagement. The result is a robust mechanical connection capable of handling high tensile loads—while remaining field serviceable. When wear occurs, crews can simply replace pins and grease the faces…rather than retire an entire tool because of damaged threads.
For contractors, that translates into three practical benefits: reduced downtime, lower long-term tooling replacement costs, and less crew fatigue. Tool changes are no longer a wrestling match. Connections seat cleanly and consistently. Maintenance becomes predictable instead of reactive.
Another advantage is modular adoption. Contractors do not need to overhaul their entire fleet overnight. Transition adapters allow Tri-Con tooling to integrate with conventional drill strings, enabling crews to use it across pilot bits, transmitter housings, reamers, and pulling eyes. This will reduce the disruption to your costs while allowing you to experience immediate operational gains. Tri-Con’s tooling family continues to expand, covering common HDD applications from pilot bore through pullback. We now have two connection sizes, 2-⅛” and 2-⅝”, in the family, and continue to add more tooling options.
In an industry where productivity is measured in feet per hour and margins are influenced by jobsite efficiency, incremental improvements compound quickly. A faster swap here, a cleaner connection there, a maintenance task simplified—over the course of a season, those small gains become meaningful.
After years of refinement in the field, the premise remains straightforward: eliminate unnecessary complications, strengthen the connection, and give contractors back time they would otherwise lose underground.
Founded in 1946 and celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, Melfred Borzall is a fourth-generation, family-owned manufacturer of HDD tooling. The company designs pilot bits, reamers, housings, adapters, and the Tri-Con™ connection system engineered to improve changeovers, durability, and jobsite efficiency.
Learn more about Tri-Con™ at www.melfredborzall.com/tri-con.
