Little Boston: Question about the blowout.

I'm wondering if anyone knows what Daniel Plainview was doing when he was striking something on the ground with a sledgehammer?  I don't know a lot about getting blowouts under control, and that's been perplexing me.  Any help?

That's what I thought too.

I think the wires were attached to pegs, and he's hammering out the pegs to release the wires.  I'll check it out tonight, during my viewing ritual ; )

I tried replying to this almost an hour ago and it knocked me off the site. Here's for my second try:

The derrick is held in place by at least four guy wires. DP and Fletcher knocked two out with a sledgehammer, because an axe would be the wrong tool to use on thick metal wires. Anyway, it didn't look like they were cutting the guy wires wires so much as knocking out the steel pegs that held them in place. (Think of the structure of a tent here.)

The derrick is built of fairly flimsy wood and in this case is located at the top of a hill, where it's vulnerable to winds. I would imagine the drilling bit and pipe need to bore down into the earth fairly straight and that if the derrick is swaying this way and that the pipe will get bent. By holding the derrick down with guy wires the derrick is made level and secure.

By cutting two of the guy wires DP can control the direction in which the burning derrick falls, rather like cutting a wedge on one side of a tree directs the fall of said tree.

I know the fasteners you mean, but I didn't notice any.

I gathered they were trying to keep the derrick from falling on the pump or whatever machinery was housed until that little shed roof.

I saw a fire tower catch on fire once (ironic, I know...) and they cut two of the cables loose to control the direction of the fall by knocking out the pegs under the steel cables.  I assumed that was what I was seeing in the film.

When a blowout happens, the rig operator(s) will do several things:

1.)  call "lights out" -- i.e. put out anything that's flammable.  The poor guy who was in the monkey-seat (the position at the very top of the derrick) usually saw the blowout coming and would use the monkey-wire (an escape wire that extended from the top of the derrick to the ground below) to escape the flame.

2.) When wooden derricks were still in operation -- cut the wires that held the derrick upright in order to either save some of the derrick and get the wood out of the way of the [coming] flame.  That way, the blowout didn't have as much fuel to burn on.  This is what DP was doing when he took the sledgehammer to the wires.

3.) Before blowout preventers were invented, the only way to stop a blowout on the magnitutude of TWBB's was to dynamite the well and cut the flame's oxygen supply.  This is what DP did when he sent the guys in with massive amounts of explosive.  Obvsiously, this ruined the well and you'd have to start from scratch.

Nowadays, oilfield technology has come light-years from what DP was utilizing.  Steel rigs, blowout prevention systems, pressure gauges, bottom-hole heat measuring systems, etc. has prevented a lot of blow-outs and gushers.  But, it still would've been very cool to witness the huge gushers of early oil industry Southern California.  If you're interested in the most famous of these gushers, google "Lakeview Gusher" --- incredible!