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Tried running my 8 inch cutterhead with worn teeth for a week and the silt pump paid for it
I skipped swapping the teeth on my 8 inch cutterhead a couple weeks back because we were behind on a job near the Port of Iberia. I figured a little wear wouldn't hurt for one more week of soft mud. By day four the pump was pulling almost double the amps and we had to stop twice a shift to blow out the discharge line. Turns out dull teeth were just rolling the clay into paste instead of cutting it loose. We lost about 6 hours of production that week, which cost way more than the teeth would have. Anyone else had a cutterhead issue sneak up on the pump side like that?
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mary_schmidt18d ago
Had the same thing happen on a job in Houma but it was the opposite side, our suction line kept plugging and we blamed the pump for two days before we figured out the cutterhead was the real problem. The teeth were so rounded off they were basically just smearing the mud around instead of biting into it, and the pump was sucking straight muck. Funny how the pump always gets the blame first when it's just doing what it's told. We started checking the teeth every morning after that, takes ten minutes and saves a whole lot of headache.
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