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My old way of checking the cutterhead teeth nearly cost me a day in Mobile
I used to just eyeball the wear on the teeth from the deck, thinking if they looked okay they were fine. That changed after a job on the Mobile River last spring when we hit a patch of old concrete and snapped three teeth in an hour. Now I make the whole crew do a full check with a gauge every single morning before we start the pump. We log the wear on each tooth in a book, and if any are past 60%, they get swapped right then. Anyone else have a strict rule like this, or do you run them until they break?
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sandrat2410d ago
My buddy's dredge in Galveston runs a 50% replacement rule for the same reason.
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oscar71210d ago
Got to disagree on that one. Seen too many operations get burned by that rule. If you only replace half the parts, you're just kicking the can down the road. A worn pump might run for a week, but it'll fail at the worst possible time, like during a big push. Full replacements cost more upfront but save a ton on downtime later.
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