Just realized my cutterhead teeth were wearing 3x faster than I thought

I was going through the logs from our last few jobs on the Mississippi and noticed we replaced cutterhead teeth on dredge 2 about every 40 hours instead of the 120 hours I had in my head. The kicker is I found out from reading the wear rate chart in the manufacturer's manual, which I'd never actually looked at before. Has anyone else had a similar surprise after actually checking the specs instead of just guessing?

2 comments

2 Comments

mia44211d ago

Did you check the water temperature too? I once had teeth wear out way faster when we were dredging in colder water, and nobody warned me the metal gets more brittle down around 40 degrees.

harperb4611d ago

Dig into what material you're cutting mostly? That 3x jump makes me wonder if you hit a patch of compacted sand or clay that just chews through teeth faster than the usual silt and mud. I've seen big swings in wear just from switching between a sandy bottom and a rocky one on the same river.