Prototype Drilling Rig Saved from Scrap
By Linda K. Randolph
Moments away from being cut into scrap, the 1928 Greene and Greene spudding rig lay on its side on top of a 15-foot pile of junk. Jim Mitchell, Bartlesville, Okla., had trouble believing that this twisted piece of equipment was the rig that had once drilled on his grandfather's land.
The old rig had a fascinating history. Built in 1928 by two brothers who had broken away from a Wichita Falls rig manufacturing company, the rig was a prototype, their first and only known existing one. When the stock market crashed, the Greene brothers went broke.
Jim, whose father and grandfather worked in the oil business in the heyday of the independent oil producer, had always been interested in antique oilfield equipment. Previously, he had collected his father's old K-type Star spudder (a 'spudding' rig literally pounds away at the earth until the hole is drilled. The bit turns on every strike so the surface area is hit at different points), some Oklahoma rod-line jacks, an old powerhouse and other remnants of this bygone era.
The rig was in sad shape. Many parts had been cannibalized. No drilling engine. Twisted beams. One-half of the axle had snapped off, and all the tires had disappeared. The crown sheave and the spring under it were missing. Existing shafts were twisted and bent. The pins that held the telescoping mast in place had disappeared. All the clutches and brakes on the draw works were frozen. The crown sheave travelling framework was gone and had to be rebuilt from scratch. In short, the rig was a disaster.
Determined that it could somehow be saved, Jim made a swap with the salvage yard. That was the first of many horse trades, and the beginning of two long years of repair and welding.
Jim's first problem was building a new axle. By cutting a truck axle in two and extending it three feet, he created a new one. D&L 66 in Nowata found tires that would work. When Jim's winch truck failed, Carl Morrison, also a third generation oil producer, loaned him his truck so he could take the project home.
What to do first? The task appeared monumental. From his memory and pictures his grandmother had taken, Jim formed an idea of the original configuration of the rig. He started by welding the parts that were easy and cheap to fix. Many of the minor parts he salvaged from old rigs his father, Douglas V. Mitchell, had owned.
Numerous items had to be made, since replacement parts were impossible to find. The turnbuckles came from Oklahoma rod-line jacks that had belonged to Jim's grandfather. The crown sheave from a Keystone spudder (circa 1905) replaced the one on the rig. Jim created a chain hoist boom from an old polished rod and two-inch pipe. The spudding guide was fabricated from an antique Leidecker-style pipe elevator. The drilling engine sheave for the long V belts used to drive the bandwheel came from a junkyard.
Jim replaced the broken drive chains and freed the frozen clutch linkages by soaking them in crude oil. He welded more handles on the mast for easier access to the pole, and replaced the pins that held the telescoping mast. A lever to operate the casing line jaw clutch came next, so he didn't have to reach in through the drawworks to engage or disengage it (Many of the drillers he'd known as a child had lost at least one finger to "pinch points" on their rigs.). Jim used channel iron to strengthen the mast. And always he welded: The rig had more cracks than he cared to count. Finally, the time came when he thought the rig was in good shape. But he needed the rest of the tools to get it in running order.