I’ve wanted to do this project for several years – actually I WANT to do 3 of them eventually. The first one will be a pretty much scale ‘operating’ foreground model version - to help figure out what corners I can cut on the other two which will probably be static.
3 is really the minimum to look right…
The oil heritage folks were nice enough to scan some Jerecki (Erie, Pa) standard rig information… Which included dimensions on the lumber!
Did I happen to mention that I’m going to build this thing uncompressed, and it is gonna be HUGE? This is just the main sill and mud sills (see above drawing). This part alone is 15" long!
Assembled drill floor sills… This piece is 10" x 10-1/2"
Already 2 feet long, and that’s only the base of the derrick section!. Sampson post (supports the walking beam) and headache post (keeps said beam from crashing down on your head if something breaks) are installed.
I was down with the crud for a couple of days, so I didn’t feel like doing much. Today I felt a bit better, so I shaped the walking beam and started to put down the drill floor… and promptly ran out of coffee stirrers. We’re having a bit of lake effect snow, so