Old timer pointed out my dredge cutter head angle was off

I was working a job on the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge last spring and this guy named Dave who's been dredging since the 70s walked up while I was taking a break. He just said "your cutter head is digging too steep, you're wasting fuel and wearing the teeth twice as fast." I'd been running that rig for almost 3 years and nobody ever told me to flatten the angle by about 15 degrees. I adjusted the boom angle and trim to match what he was saying and within a day I could feel the machine running smoother and vibrating less. My production rate actually went UP by about 20% on that same stretch of riverbed. Has anyone else gotten that kind of specific feedback from a veteran that fixed something you didn't even know was broken?

2 comments

2 Comments

parkerkim1mo ago

Down in Plaquemine back in 08, an old welder named Earl told me I was putting too much heat into a pipe joint and making the metal brittle. I'd been welding that way for years and thought it was fine until I started getting hairline cracks a week later. He showed me a slower pass with a lower amperage and I never looked back - sometimes the guys who've been doing it since before you were born just know stuff you can't learn from a manual.

jamiesingh1mo ago

Hate to be that guy, @parkerkim, but isn't it possible Earl was just wrong and your old way worked fine?