My old dredge had this worn out cutter head I kept patching...

I spent 10 years running a beat-up ’85 Ellicott that I kept alive with zip ties and welds. Then I got a chance to run a new 2019 model for a month down in Baton Rouge on a Mississippi job. The difference in cutting through packed sand and clay was night and day, the new one just ate through it where my old one would stall out every 20 minutes. Makes me wonder how much money I lost running that worn out machine for so long. Anyone else had a wake-up call after using newer gear?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley_taylor1mo ago

You ever add up all that downtime in your head? Bet it's a number you don't wanna see. I ran a beat up 2010 model for years, thought I was saving money by not buying new. Then I got on a late model swing ladder for two weeks. The old one would bog down in heavy clay, have to back off and feather the throttle. New one just held steady RPMs and chewed through it like butter. Made me realize I'd been burning fuel and time for nothing.

hernandez.finley1mo ago

Heard this exact story from an old coworker of mine, @riley_taylor. He ran a worn-out 2007 model for six years, patching the swing gear with a welder every other month. Then he got a chance to run a brand new 2016 at a job up in Michigan. He told me the first time he hit a thick clay seam, the new cutter just stayed there, no bogging down, no feathering the throttle. He said he sat there for a solid minute just watching it eat through stuff that would've killed his old machine in seconds. When he got back to his old rig, he couldn't unsee how much time and fuel he'd been wasting. Said it hurt to think about, but he still kept running it for another year anyway.