Frederick William Wink

Obituary

Frederick William Wink, entrepreneur and inventor of the portable diamond drill known as the Winkie, has passed away. He was 92.

In addition to inventing three kinds of drills, he built several successful companies, met four Canadian prime ministers, four U.S. presidents and was asked by the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy to oversee development programs in West Africa.

Wink was born in Winnipeg, Man., in 1914. He eventually moved to Red Lake, Ont., to work in the Howie Red Lake gold mine in 1934 — as a cook. But before long, he was underground assisting a diamond driller. He liked it enough that inside of six months he was promoted to operator, and later became a skilful diamond-bit setter.

In 1943, he headed for the oil fields of Alberta but did not stay long, opting instead for a drilling assignment in Yellowknife, N.W.T.

From there, he moved to Brazil, taught himself to read and write Portuguese and formed a successful diamond-drilling company. Among other successes, Wink’s company drilled the world’s largest manganese deposit.

In 1950, after a call from then-president Getulio Vargas, Wink was appointed consultant to the Brazilian mining industry and given an office in the presidential palace.

While in Brazil, he also set up a mining school for students seeking to learn the diamond drilling business. Since he paid his students to attend, the school proved popular.

After four years in Brazil, Wink and his family returned to Winnipeg and set about designing a portable drill for use in Brazil’s jungles. Soon he devised a small portable diamond drill he dubbed the Winkie. By 1956, the machine was able to drill to a depth of 150 ft., and eventually reached 450 ft.

He set up manufacturing plants in Milwaukee, Wis., and then San Francisco. Sales took off, and in late 1956, J.K. Smit & Sons International acquired the patent, and Winkie’s manufacturing and sales rights. Atlas Copco now owns the rights to the drill, which is sold in more than 100 countries around the world.

Years later, while still in San Francisco, Wink wrote a letter to then-president Kennedy, offering his services overseas. Three months later, he was invited to the White House, where he was offered a chance to travel throughout West Africa to assess what kind of direct aid was needed.

While advising the U.S. government on aid suggestions, he naturally promoted his Winkie drill. During the next seven years, he circled the globe three times on various trade missions for Canada; visiting such places as Malaysia, Borneo, Thailand, India, Africa and South America. Between 1961 and 1969, Wink travelled to 54 different countries.

In 1973, Wink conceived and built the Hydro-Wink diamond drill, a machine capable of drilling to 1,000 ft. below surface. Powered by a Volkswagen engine, the drill extracts NQ size core (47.6 mm in diameter) and can be used as an auger. Wink sold the manufacturing and sales rights to E.J. Longyear, which marketed it as the Longyear 28.

While consulting in French Polynesia in the late 1970s, blocking out a phosphate deposit, Wink envisaged a new kind of vibrating drill that would cut through unconsolidated sands and gravels like butter. It was to be the Vibra-Core drill. Powered by a small lawnmower engine, the 25-lb. drill featured an off-balance “sonic head” that spins at 12,000 rpm, resulting in a fast vibration that drives the core barrel into the earth to retrieve the uncontaminated core. Junior Freegold Recovery used the Vibra-Core in the late 1980s to test the old gold tailings at the Campbell Red Lake mine, in northwestern Ontario. The Geological Survey of Canada tested the Vibra-Core in the Beaufort Sea.

Wink is survived by his wife Kari, and children Debbie, Wendy, Rick and Randy.