Spotted a unique cutterhead setup on a small dredge in Portland

Brooke Taylor · 2026-03-22T19:15:04.524464+00:00

I was walking along the Willamette last week and saw a crew working a small hydraulic dredge with a modified cutterhead. It had these extra, smaller teeth welded on at an angle between the main ones. The operator said it helped with the compacted clay layer they kept hitting, breaking it up without bogging down the whole head. Has anyone else tried something like that for tough bottom material?

charles7205mo ago

Got a picture of that setup? Would love to see how they angled those smaller teeth.

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patricia_carter5mo ago

My buddy's crew did something similar for a rocky stretch upriver. They called it their "poor man's ripper" and it worked surprisingly well.

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casey8185mo ago

Sounds like a smart field fix for that specific problem. Welding on extra teeth is a common hack when standard gear isn't cutting it. Bet it saved them a ton of downtime.

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davis.olivia5mo ago

That poor man's ripper sounds like a real jury rig. How much extra wear does that put on the main gearbox though?

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