Am I the only one who sees guys running their cutterhead way too fast in soft silt?

I was working on a channel job near Mobile last week and the crew on the barge next to us was just churning mud like crazy. Their foreman had the cutter spinning at 22 rpm when the bed was pure silt and clay. That's a great way to turn your whole cut into a cloudy mess and lose your grade line. I learned the hard way on a job in the Atchafalaya years ago that you need to drop that speed by half in that material, or you'll spend hours waiting for the water to clear. How do you all figure out your cutter speed for different bottoms?

3 comments

3 Comments

thomas.piper29d agoMost Upvoted

Watched the same thing happen on a river job up in Illinois. They turned the whole channel into chocolate milk and had to stop for half a day. You learn pretty quick that slower is cleaner in that muck.

oliver_adams29d ago

Seen that exact mess on a dredge project down south. Crew got too aggressive with the pump and clouded up a whole cove. Took forever for the silt to settle so we could see anything. Makes you realize fast that rushing just costs you more time in the end.

avery62923d ago

Man, that's a classic mistake... you get in soft stuff and think more speed is better. It just whips the material into a soup. We keep a little chart in the cab, basic stuff like silt gets 8-12 rpm, sand can handle 18-20. You gotta watch your vacuum gauge too, if it's jumping around you're probably just stirring mud. Slowing down feels wrong but it keeps the cut clean so you can actually see what you're doing.