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That day I found out my cutterhead angle was wrong for 2 years
I was running a job on the Mississippi near Baton Rouge last month when a older operator walked up and watched me for a minute. He asked why I had my cutterhead tilted so far forward on that silty bottom. I told him that's how I always ran it, you know, to dig deeper. He pulled out his phone and showed me a photo of the exact same cut from his rig, and the angle was totally different. I had been forcing the machine to do extra work (and wearing down my teeth way faster) because I never bothered to match the angle to the material. Have any of you guys caught yourself running a bad habit for years without realizing it?
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jamesm381mo ago
I get what you're saying about tracking the numbers, but honestly I don't think every lesson needs a spreadsheet to be real. Tbh when you've been doing this long enough you can feel the difference in how the machine runs before the fuel gauge even moves. Ngl though, I get why some guys want hard proof before they believe it. But sometimes just watching the wear pattern on your teeth and feeling the vibration change is enough to tell you something was off for years.
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wadem892mo ago
Did you ever go back and check if your fuel consumption dropped after you fixed the angle? Seems like that alone would have paid for the lesson real quick.
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