Old timer at the shop told me I was running my cutterhead wrong

I was burning through teeth every 3 weeks on a sandy job up near Stockton. This guy who's been on a dredge since the 80s watched me for maybe 5 minutes and said I had too much angle on the ladder. Dropped it back 5 degrees and now I'm getting almost 6 weeks out of a set. Anyone else get little tweaks like that from the older guys that made a big difference?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_emma16d ago

Check your swing clearance too. Most guys run them too tight and it chokes the material flow way worse than any angle issue.

henryt1816d agoMost Upvoted

35 years in and I still made that mistake last month. @the_emma is right, once I backed that off a quarter turn it ran like a different machine. Hard to unlearn bad habits I guess.

mileslane16d ago

My buddy Dave just swapped out a machine on his line last month and same thing, he had the clearance so tight you could barely slide a piece of paper through. I told him to back it off a quarter turn like Emma said and he texted me two hours later saying it was like night and day difference. He'd been fighting that thing for a week, tweaking angles and speeds, and it was just that one stupid adjustment the whole time. Makes you wonder how many hours we've all wasted on stuff that simple.