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Cutterhead speed vs swing rate - which one matters more for sand?
Last week on the Mississippi job, I had to choose between cranking the cutterhead to 32 RPM or speeding up the swing to 30 feet per minute to clear the sand. My old foreman swears by slow swing and fast cutter, but the new guy says just the opposite. What's your take on getting through sand boils without beating up the ladder?
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hugoj861mo ago
Take both numbers and split the difference, that'll really confuse the sand.
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Hugo's right about splitting it being confusing. But the real trick is matching cutter speed to the sand density. If you're hitting loose sand that shifts easy, slow cutter and fast swing just churns it all up. The ladder shakes like crazy too. For sand boils specifically, I've had better luck keeping cutterhead at 28 RPM and swing at 22 feet per minute. That lets the cutter bite without overloading the ladder. Too fast on swing just makes the sand boil worse because you keep hitting fresh spots before the cutter clears. You want a steady rhythm where the sand gets drawn into the cutter, not pushed away.
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