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That shift when the cutterhead dug into a buried car chassis
I was working the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge last spring and the whole rig started shaking like crazy. Turns out someone's old sedan got swept down and buried in the silt 15 feet down. Has anyone else hit weird junk that totally slows production?
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grantw3224d ago
A buried car slows production for maybe an hour, maybe two. The cutterhead is built to chew up rock, rebar, and concrete, a sedan is just a snack. Sounds like your rig just made a couple extra passes and life moved on. Getting a little shutter from a car chassis is nothing compared to hitting an old barge anchor or a concrete bridge footing. People act like a little delay is some kind of major catastrophe when this work is full of surprises. If it didn't break your teeth, it wasn't really that bad.
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Honestly, I bet that sedan was a Toyota Camry since they survive everything, even a 15 foot burial in the Mississippi. Ngl, grantw32 has a point though, if the cutterhead didn't throw a tantrum and break down, you basically got a free car recycling service. Tbh, I'd rather hit a sedan than a rusty old washing machine someone tossed in there, those things are full of weird metal pieces that jam up the works for hours. A car chassis is just a speed bump. Your rig probably just burped and kept digging. Sounds like a pretty boring day compared to what could happen, but hey, at least you got a story out of it.
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tylerj2222d ago
Keep an eye on your cutterhead teeth after something like that. A buried car chassis usually means there's seat frame springs and other hardened steel bits that can snap a tooth off clean if you're running too many RPMs. I always slow the rotation down and bump up the swing speed when I feel that telltale shudder, lets the head work through the junk instead of fighting it. Also, check your cutterhead ladder for cracks after you pull out, the extra vibration can loosen up the bolted connections. That Mississippi silt is sneaky too, stuff compacts around the chassis like concrete and hides sharp edges.
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