Top of Texas Gazette: It Ain't an Easy Job

September 4, 2008

Bein' a worm.

That's what we used to call "breakin' off a wet one".

Mike said...: Looks like to me as though the driller didn't kick out his tail pump; at the least, he left his charge/centrifugal pump on, but that was quite a bit of pressure to be just that...certainly could've been, though.

While pulling pipe out of the hole on a "trip", we used to always hit the pipe with a small hammer...a loud ringing clang meant it was dry; a dull thud meant there was fluid in the pipe.

That looks to me as though it was on a connection (adding another length of pipe to the drillstem) and as I said, it looks as though the driller was more wormy than was the worm.

I ALWAYS looked over my shoulder at the pressure gauge on the standpipe before breaking the joint on a connection; it doesn't take too much pressure to cause a mess because there's quite a bit of mud in the pipe.

It was always my motto to never work for anyone any wormier than myself. Even as wormy as I was, that narrowed my choice of bosses.

I've been hit with that sort of force, several times. I was always glad to be nearsighted and wearing my glasses...there's almost always some sort of filler in that mud, sometimes there's tiny pieces of rock cuttings.

It's no fun trying to wash out the cottonseed hulls from underneath your eyelids.; September 4, 2008 at 11:58 AM

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