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Shoutout to the foreman in Galveston who laughed at my dredge pump schedule
He said I was running the cutterhead too slow for the sand we had, and after I bumped it up 15%, the production numbers doubled. Has anyone else had to unlearn what they were taught about matching pump speed to material?
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uma_lopez14d ago
Same thing happened to me with a clamshell dredge. Kept running it slow because that's what the manual said. Supervisor cranked it up and we pulled twice the material in half the time. Sometimes you just gotta listen to the old guys.
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jamesmason14d ago
Ngl, I had the same thing with a 6-inch suction dredge back in 2017. Kept running it at half throttle like the manual said and was getting maybe 2 yards an hour. Old timer named Hank just walked over, cracked the throttle wide open, and we pulled 6 yards in under 45 minutes. Honestly, manuals are written by engineers who never actually ran a dredge in mud. The old guys just know what works because they've been fighting the machine for decades. Tbh, I'd rather trust a guy with mud on his boots than a piece of paper every time.
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