Concluding Remarks

The descriptions of 16 makes of portable cable tool drilling machines and their various models and sizes as discussed in this chapter by no means cover the multitude of "brands" that were built from the 1870's to present.  Finally the combination rig (rotary and cable tool) as listed in the Oil Well Supply catalog of 1904 was discussed and illustrated herein. 

Among those cable tool machines not included here are the American Well Works rigs (1890's), Knupp rig (1900 and earlier and sold by Oil Well Supply), Armstrong  (1900's and an all-steel model in 1915), and the Novelty Iron Works (1880's) to name a few.

Some makes were roughly look-alikes because the working equipment was based on more or less similar designs with possibly a different layout.  Refinements and inventions were often not conspicuous enough to change the general profile.  If one had to pick a point of overall marked distinction in the progress chart, I would say that the advent of truck mounted rigs with pneumatic tires that could drive down the highway like any other vehicle and then make it to the well site would be that stellar point in the progress of the portable drilling machine.  The portable cable tool drilling machines seem to relate to the same evolutional process as if they all had the same lineage.  In fact, all of them historically harked back to the standard rig which was built by carpenters fairly close to a standard specification and at the site where the well was to be drilled.  It was custom made, so to speak.