Old foreman told me my dredge cuts were too aggressive

I spent 5 years running a cutterhead just slamming through material as fast as I could. Then my foreman said I was overloading the pump and wearing out the cutter teeth twice as fast. He showed me his trick of pulling back 15% on the swing speed and letting the hopper fill steady. I tried it on a sandy clay job near Baton Rouge and my production actually went up 20% over the shift. Now I watch the pump vacuum gauge like a hawk instead of just flooring it. Anyone else had to slow down to speed up on a certain material type?

2 comments

2 Comments

blakem8219d ago

Totally feel you on this one man. I had a similar wake up call running a suction dredge on a muddy river job years ago. I was all about speed and pushing that cutterhead hard until the old guys showed me the pump gauge trick. It felt counterintuitive at first, like backing off was cheating or something. But once I started watching the vacuum and letting the material flow steady, my shift totals went up and the wear on the pump and teeth dropped off noticeably. It's crazy how much of this work is just listening to the machine and knowing when to take your foot off the gas. Glad you found that groove too.

haydenburns19d ago

Nothing beats learning from the old timers who've already burned through every mistake you're about to make.