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Vent: My cutterhead grabbed a boulder and snapped a tooth off in under 2 seconds | Dredge Operators - nhfree.com

Vent: My cutterhead grabbed a boulder and snapped a tooth off in under 2 seconds

Was working a flood control channel in Mobile Bay last Tuesday, clearing out some sandy silt. Hit what I thought was just a buried log, but the whole machine lurched and I heard a crack that made my coffee cup jump off the console. Shut down and found a 30-pound chunk of granite wedged between the ring and the cutter, plus a brand new tooth snapped clean off at the base. Lost half the day swapping it out and digging the rock out by hand with a pry bar and cussing. Anyone else ever have a cutter grab something that just wasn't supposed to be there?

3 comments

3 Comments

juliahall5mo ago

lol "coffee cup jumped off the console" that's a hell of a way to start a Tuesday. I'm just gonna toss this out there though - have you checked if that granite chunk had any iron staining or tool marks on it? I worked a job in the Tennessee River a few years back where a guy pulled up what looked like a random rock but it turned out to be a broken-off chunk of an old railroad trestle footing from the 1920s. Those old concrete bases had granite ballast mixed in sometimes. Might be something weird from the original flood channel construction or even a dumped foundation from when they built the bay causeway. Probably not but worth a peek before you write it off as just any old rock.

the_phoenix5mo ago

Wait, you're saying they used actual granite ballast in concrete footings?

shane_wilson3mo ago

Granite ballast in concrete footings, man, people back then really just threw whatever heavy rocks they had lying around into the mix and called it a day. Honestly kind of genius if you think about it, free aggregate with a side of historic railroad debris. So yeah, you might pull up a chunk that looks like it could be part of a decorative walkway but once you chip off the old mortar, you find a piece of some 1920s superstructure. Wouldn't surprise me if that thing you found was just a fancy paperweight for a century old bridge that nobody remembers anymore.