The first commercial oil well in the United States was in western Pennsylvania in 1859. By 1865 it had been discovered that setting off explosives at the bottom of a well (“shooting the well”) could increase the productivity of an otherwise unprofitable hole. Although gunpowder was tried at first, the industry came to rely on the use of the highly unstable but powerful explosive: nitroglycerin. Shooting wells became a very specialized business that took particular knowledge and tools as well as a lot of courage. To get the explosive to the wellhead a special wagon was developed with extra large leaf springs and large wheels to soak up shocks from the rough roads. The nitro was carried in rectangular copper cans that each held about 8 quarts. There was typically room for 12 or 16 cans in the metal lined compartment under the hinged driver’s seat. This meant the driver was sitting on up to 400 pounds of this dangerous liquid. Things got even scarier at the well site. The “shooter” would lower a thin steel tube that was capped on the bottom end down into the well just enough so he could carefully fill it with nitroglycerin from the cans. Once filled this “torpedo” or “shell” was lowered on a line to the bottom of the well and a special weight was sent down the line to ignite a blasting cap which in turn set off the nitro.
My 1/12 scale nitro wagon model started out as a wood buckboard wagon kit. I was able to use the kit wheels and some of the hardware but everything else was built from scratch except the horse. The horse was a naked white plastic Breyer horse with no harness and no hair. The wagon body is wood with metal hardware. The harness is real leather with purchased scale buckles and bit. The company name was painted using a micro-stencil made on a vinyl cutting machine. All the wood, metal pieces and signage were developed using FreeCAD and Inkscape software.
Down In The Shop 