rockershovel's Blog

That's a very nice (and large) model!  Having sat wells in various parts of the world (Texas, Indonesia, Abu Dhabi, Colombia, Thailand) the history of drilling rig design really has not changed much, though the big change was from percussion drilling to rotary drilling (Howard Hughes made his fortune on rotary drill bits).  These days modern offshore deepwater rigs are highly automated, but your model pre-dates automation!

 

One of the most exciting aspects of drilling for oil and gas is to run a successful test flow.  In my case, a well in Texas flowed 7million cubic feet of gas per day and the ground shook during the maximum flow.  The gas was flared, so there's an idea for embellishing your model!

Land rigs hadnt changed much since the 1960s, until the introduction of top drives and iron roughnecks a while ago - I first saw these offshore in the 1970s but I worked on a new land rig in 1983 on which the power tong was regarded as the cutting edge of technology!

 

It would be fun to have a working gas flare but I can't imagine most exhibition managers buying into it...