Just realized my cutterhead speed was way off after a rocky month on the Missouri River

I spent most of July working a stretch near Kansas City, running my 12-inch dredge at what I thought was a normal RPM. But the material was coming up real slow and we kept hearing the pump strain. After three days of fighting it, a guy from the Army Corps came by and said my cutterhead was spinning too fast for the sandy clay mix we had. He told me to drop it from 40 RPM down to 28 and suddenly the production jumped by about 20 percent. Has anyone else had a similar experience where slowing things down actually sped things up?

2 comments

2 Comments

anthony_jenkins611mo ago

Well don't that beat all, slowing down to speed up.

schmidt.grace1mo ago

My buddy tried that with his old Ford truck. He dropped from 70 to 55 on a long mountain pass and saved nearly a quarter tank. Took a bit longer but his engine ran way smoother the rest of the trip.