c/dredge-operators

Overheard a salvage crew chief saying they run pumps dry to 'blow out the lines', my stomach dropped

That kills the seal on a 12 inch sand pump in one dry spin, I watched a guy at the Port of Gulfport wreck a $9,000 impeller doing exactly that last spring, has anyone else encountered this shortcut on a job site?

1 comments

park.abby•19d ago

That $2,800 swing valve upgrade from last spring finally paid for itself

Been running the same old swing valve since 2012 and it kept jamming on fines every other week, so I bit the bullet in April and it hasn't clogged once through three big jobs on the Mississippi. Anyone else notice the newer valves handle silt way better than the cast iron units we all started on, or did I just get lucky with this one?

1 comments

leelewis•20d ago

The 4am clog at Lock 12 that made me rethink everything

Back in June, we ran 14 straight hours on the Kaskaskia River and hit a sandbar clog that everyone said was impossible to clear without shutting down for a week. I spent 45 minutes working the swing arm at half throttle, nudging instead of forcing it, and the whole thing broke loose clean. My crew laughed at me for going slow, but we saved the contract and finished the pull by 7am. Has anyone else found that babying the suction when things look stuck ends up faster than muscle?

c/dredge-operators

Overheard a salvage crew chief saying they run pumps dry to 'blow out the lines', my stomach dropped

That $2,800 swing valve upgrade from last spring finally paid for itself

The 4am clog at Lock 12 that made me rethink everything

The raccoon that rewired my night shift routine at the Port of Galveston

Suction hose collapse on the Mississippi near Baton Rouge

That $300 hydraulic oil test kit finally paid for itself

That "quick fix" cutterhead trick saved me $2k in Tulsa

Took me 6 months to trust the dredge pump flow meter

Picked a hydraulic cutter over an excavator attachment, glad I did

Finally realized my swing angle was killing my production curve

I finally learned the hard way why you never skip the pre-dredge sonar sweep

I keep seeing new guys treat the swing like it's a car steering wheel

Hit 10,000 cubic yards moved last week and it got me thinking about the old days

Old timer on the Mississippi taught me a trick about reading the current that saved me 3 days of work

Lost a cutterhead to a buried tire near New Orleans last month

Appreciation post: the old timer at the dock in Galveston who showed me how to read a dredge pump curve

Old-timer in Galveston told me I was cutting my suction line too short

Had a chat with an old dredge hand in Baton Rouge that got me thinking about suction lines

Had a boss tell me my pipe bends were 'sloppy' - changed everything about my setup

I finally switched from cable to hydraulic dredge controls on an old Ellicott

The spec sheet on my dredge pump lied by 40%

Learned a wild fact about hydraulic oil temperature from a manual I skipped

Everyone swears by the new turbos but I'll take my old clamshell any day

Wasted $800 on a fancy new cutterhead that didn't fit my rig

Old timer on site swore by greasing the cutterhead every 4 hours