Methods are disclosed for handling cylindrical tubulars in a process that, in preferred embodiments, also performs cleaning, inspection and other operations on the tubular. The tubular is held stationary while it is rotated. During rotation of the tubular, internal and external cleaning systems, and data acquisition systems, pass up and down the length of the rotating tubular. In preferred embodiments, a first tubular is loaded onto the handling machine, whereupon it is indexed and then rotated. Cleaning, inspection and other operations may be performed during rotation. Once operations are complete, the handling system ejects the first tubular while queuing up a second tubular to be loaded.

A Knuckle Jointed Lance (KJL), comprising a segmented lance including a plurality of elongate and hollow KJL segments in a concatenated string thereof. The first segment end of one KJL segment is rotatably connected to the second segment end of a neighboring KJL segment via a pinned connection. Neighboring pairs of KJL segments together provide an interlocking toothed connection such that each interlocking toothed connection restrains relative torsional displacement between the neighboring pair of KJL segments. In other embodiments, pinned connections also provide ears, each with cooperating ear ledges and ear ledge recesses to strengthen the pinned connection.

A Knuckle Jointed Lance (KJL), comprising a segmented lance including a plurality of elongate and hollow KJL segments in a concatenated string thereof. The first segment end of one KJL segment is rotatably connected to the second segment end of a neighboring KJL segment via a pinned connection. Neighboring pairs of KJL segments together provide an interlocking toothed connection such that each interlocking toothed connection restrains relative torsional displacement between the neighboring pair of KJL segments. In other embodiments, pinned connections also provide ears, each with cooperating ear ledges and ear ledge recesses to strengthen the pinned connection.

A Knuckle Jointed Lance (KJL), comprising a segmented lance including a plurality of connected KJL segments in a concatenated string thereof. The first end of one KJL segment is rotatably connected to the second end of a neighboring KJL segment via a pinned connection. Responsive to user assignment of a predetermined length to each KJL segment in the concatenated string according to the KJL segment's corresponding pre-ordained position in the concatenated string, the lance is disposed to spool onto a reel in nested fashion, such that as the lance makes spooling revolutions onto the reel, (a) KJL segments stack in circumferential registered layers around the reel and (b) pinned connections trace substantially radial vectors from a center of the reel. Other embodiments provide additional features to facilitate nesting and to generally strengthen the KJL.

A Knuckle Jointed Lance (KJL), comprising a segmented lance including a plurality of connected KJL segments in a concatenated string thereof. The first end of one KJL segment is rotatably connected to the second end of a neighboring KJL segment via a pinned connection. Responsive to user assignment of a predetermined length to each KJL segment in the concatenated string according to the KJL segment's corresponding pre-ordained position in the concatenated string, the lance is disposed to spool onto a reel in nested fashion, such that as the lance makes spooling revolutions onto the reel, (a) KJL segments stack in circumferential registered layers around the reel and (b) pinned connections trace substantially radial vectors from a center of the reel. Other embodiments provide additional features to facilitate nesting and to generally strengthen the KJL.