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My old boss in Galveston swore by a 15 degree cutterhead angle for sand, but I tried 20.
He said anything steeper would just push material instead of cutting it. We were working a sandy stretch near the jetties last week, and the 20 degree setup actually pulled in 30% more volume per hour. Has anyone else found that the old rules of thumb don't always hold up on different bottoms?
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fisher.charlie1mo ago
Yeah man, same thing happened to me up in Oregon last month. We were working a stretch near the Columbia River mouth where the bottom switches from hard packed sand to loose stuff every 50 feet. I had an old timer tell me 12 degrees was the magic number for everything, but I tried 18 on a whim and it was like the dredge woke up. The production numbers straight up doubled on the loose sections, and the packed parts didn't even slow down like people warned me. I think a lot of those old rules came from guys running smaller gear or just repeating what they heard 30 years ago. Bottom changes constantly and so should your setup if you're watching the gauges close enough.
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taylorhunt3mo ago
Honestly that's a pretty small change, not some huge rule breaker. Sand near jetties gets packed down different than open beach, so maybe that's it. The_jordan has a point about Galveston, but sometimes you just get a good day.
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