Tried a 6-inch cutterhead on a tight river bend near Baton Rouge

I swapped to a smaller cutterhead for a narrow section of the Mississippi last month, thinking it'd save time. Instead, it clogged up twice in the first hour because the material was just too dense. Learned that a 6-inch head needs looser stuff to really work, otherwise you're just digging yourself a headache. Anyone else run into this with different cutter sizes?

3 comments

3 Comments

lewis.brian13d ago

Did you catch that article in Dredging Today about cutterhead geometry and how blade angle affects clogging in mixed soils?

adam_baker13d ago

Same thing happened to me on a job near Memphis last fall. I figured a smaller head would let me sneak through some tight spots faster, but I spent more time pulling the cutter out and clearing clogs than I did actually cutting. The material was silty clay mixed with gravel, and that little head just packed up solid every ten minutes. I ended up switching back to my standard 8-inch and just took it slower through the tight spots.

walker.julia13d ago

Feel your pain on that one. Nothing worse than pulling a head every ten minutes just to knock the crap out of it. That silty clay is brutal when it packs up tight like that.