TIL switching from a standard dredge cutterhead to a ripper cutterhead on a rocky job near Omaha cut my downtime by nearly 40%

I was skeptical because I figured a ripper head would just chew through more wear parts but after three days of hitting boulders the old school operator I shadowed showed me how it broke up hard material faster and saved me two full shifts of clearing jams. Has anyone else seen that big a difference swapping cutterheads on tough ground?

2 comments

2 Comments

avery_roberts6722d ago

You ever jam a rock so bad it bent your cutterhead shaft? I was on a job in western Nebraska last year and we had a standard head hit a buried boulder. Bent the whole assembly. Took us 18 hours to get a new one shipped in. After that we switched to a ripper head for the rest of that project. Never had a jam that bad again. But I will say ripper heads throw more vibration through the boom. Made my arm numb after a full day.

dylan26522d ago

Did you end up feeling that vibration in your shoulders too? @avery_roberts67 I had almost the same thing happen on a job in Colorado. Hit a chunk of granite with a standard head and it twisted the shaft so bad we had to cut it off with a torch. Swapped to a ripper head and it chewed through the rest no problem, but my whole right side was sore for a week. Never realized how much that extra shake gets into your joints.