Roughnecking on a Drilling Rig — Summer of 1964 just before my Senior Year at OU. With the help of my mother’s cousin, I got a job roughnecking on an oil drilling rig, mostly near Prague, Oklahoma.
I was 5′ 9″ and 120 pounds at the time. My goal was to prove to myself and to the crew that I could do the work. At the start, the crew I was on would not let me work on the rig floor. However, they were short handed and they needed another hand on the floor. I worked on the rig floor for about 4 weeks. Here is a short video showing a little of what it was like on the rig floor. The chain was initially wrapped around the pipe sticking out of the hole. When a new length pipe was “stabbed” into the pipe below, the chain was thrown onto the pipe on top. The draw works then pulled on the chain screwing the joint together quickly. The draw works then pulled on the tongs like giant pipe wrenches to tighten the joint.
The company I was with started a second rig near Prague, OK. We were really short handed on this rig. The Driller asked me if I was afraid of heights. I said I think I can handle it so they let me work in the derrick. Here is a video that shows a little of what it was like.
The rig I was on was much smaller than the one in the videos but the job worked the same way. Each time I went to work on the derrick floor I would step up on the elevator [clamp under the block which grips the pipe] and ride up to the derrick floor. I would then put on a harness, and tie it to a railing. Drill pipe is in the derrick with “stands” of three sections of pipe each around 30 feet long. Job here is to stack the pipe in the comb-like rack. Each time the drill bit needs to be changed, ALL the drill pipe has to be removed from the hole and racked. Once the drill bit is changed down on the rig floor, the process is reversed and the pipe is placed in the elevator, lifted enough so the roughnecks on the floor can make up the joint using the chain and the tongs. The stand of pipe is lowered into the hole and the slips are set to suspend the pipe in the hole. The elevator is released and the draw works runs back to the derrick floor for me to un-rack a stand and place it into the elevator and latch it. We referred to the change of bits as “making a trip.” When the hole was really deep [about 6,000 feet on our rig] this could take six or eight hours.
This job was quite an experience for me. All the men on my crew were pretty rough guys. All were ex-convicts but they treated me quite well. We worked 12-hour shifts 7 days a week (44 hours of overtime each week). I lived in a rooming house with a bath at the end of the hall. Costs was $7 per week. I took a lunch with me each day, usually consisting of Vienna Sausages, crackers and twinkies or cupcakes. I did not have time to spend any money, so I made enough to pay for my whole senior year of college expenses. This was a time of intense learning about life for me. It was a little like my own private boot camp. I proved that I could get work done!