Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1939-06-03
CALLING ALL PHuOLOCISTS

This means Noah Websterl What a bel
he missed when he passed up the oil
fields
Shove along the hell-raiser Jack,
may not be table talk, but how it would
enrich Mr.. Webster's collection Trans
lated this means there are some missing
tools in the well and the driller wants
to fish them out with a super-electro-
magnet. 1t always gets its fish!
If he's going in for amateur work, he
uses a Devils pitchfork," with folding
claw hooks, or a cherry picker, with
a collarshaped schoop.
He even has a Headache post" to
lean on when he gets tired That's a
timber which holds Up the walking
beam" when It isn't walking. When it
is, he uses the headache sl.c6" to ad-
just the six-foot temper screw that
lowers the drilling bit. That's sick
with hole in it, The walking BEAM E"
is a swinging lever that gives vertical
motion to cable-drilling tools.
"Sky-hookers." or derrick men, know
all about crows nests" the working
platform at the top of the derrick.
Rotary drillers know all aoout grief
stems" or "Kellys." the heavy, square.
steel pipe screwed to the top of the
drill pipe and fitted to the rotary-drill-
turntable Everybody knows the "crumb
and the pencil pusher," who checks the
time in the graveyard" the late nighG
and early morning shift.
Drillers are acquainted with dead
men too, the buried stone blocks for
anchoring guy lines from derricks and
sometimes they use a "go-devil," or
"squib," which is pipeline scraper
with automatic spring blades. In the
early days, 1t was a pointed bar dropped
do ofso
In their domestic moments drillers
play around with biscuit cutters, apron
rings and Christmas treesl Apron rings
are the bottom ring of plates on oil
storage tanks. Biscuit cutters g.
inch barrels for cutting out biscuit-sized
"cores," samples OF subsurface forma-
tions. christmas trees" or branches
of valves at the top of the drill pipe,
control the flow.
One of the newer gadgets is a thief"
a heavy cylinder which ''steals" liquid
samples from tanks for testing 1t can
be lowered quickly before valve at the
bottom opens, enabling the tester to
take samples from any depth.
In the earnest sos when drillers
wanted to get away from it all they
shipped abroad a crusader" a sailing
vessel that had been converted into an
oil carrier 1t wasn't long, though be-
beside the derrick, meekiy taking a
richly-flavored bawling out from the
'tool-pusher" or the boss, and glad to
get a "swamper's job" as drffier's helper.
Many times we have 4to-stop in the
midst of preparation of our publications
in order to simplify the terms SO that
they will be understandable" to one who
has never seen an oil field, and we fire.
quently wish that our people would learn
the oil fields lingo, which would make
il ever so much easier Accordingly,
we decided to devote some time to this
educational work, certain that our mem
bers will enjoy reading some of the lingo
and many will want to clip out and
preserve a little dictionary of oil field
terms which are most commonly used,
and which is presented herewith.
Many of our new members will not
confess that they do not understand some
simple term such as "spuddng," and we
do not realize the fact until we take
members to the oil field with us where
they ask the meaning of the common
phrases. Recently we went to the dis
covery we'll on Pendroy to show a guest
the portable rotary rig. When we ar
rived we found that the portable rotary
had been moved off and in its place
was a pulling machine.
What is a pulling machine?" came
the surprising question
We explained that a pulling machine
is made up of a drum mounted on a
truck, with motor and gears and mast
arranged so that a steel cable can be
lowered into the hole or can be used to
raise pump rods or tubing out of the
hole In this instance it was being used,
for 'swabbing again we met
question mark. We explained that a
"swab" is a device which fits tightly
in the tubing or in the casing, with
expanding leather or composition cups
1t is lowered below the fluid level and
when lifted up the cups keep the oil
from escaping and the load" is lifted
to the surface and is flowed through the
FLOW lines" into the tanks Where the
casing is not uniform in inside dimen-
sion the swab will occasionly ''Iose the
load" as the oil escapes back down the
hole wherever the cups fail to fit
tightly.
With each explanatory phrase we
delved deeper and deeper into oil fields
and soon found ourselves
working on dictionary Of oil field
terms
Not only do we have to keen ION our
toes" to understand the age-oId language
Of the industry but we must keep alert
to new terms which arrived with the
new sciences such as electrical
well logging whereby a mechanical de-