Donald Wertz recalls his dad's exploits drilling with a wooden drill rig.
Some of the things I remember him telling me about the old wood machines: They had no power and casing had to be jacked back using latch jacks because you just could not pull anything with the wood machines. Casing was driven via a large steel block, and because the cable was rope and not steel, the drilling action was much superior to cable used later because the rope would stretch like a spring on each stroke. One thing he liked about the all-wood frame was that it was easy to repair, as there were no portable welders back then.