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Had a chat with a retired operator at the diner last Tuesday
He told me he used to eyeball cutterhead depth by watching the mud boil color, no sonar at all. Made me realize I lean on my gear way too much instead of feeling the machine through the controls. Anyone else ever ditch the fancy readouts and just go by feel?
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aaron7403mo ago
That bit about the mud boil color is wild, I bet that guy could spot a change in the ground a mile away just by watching that. So what exactly did he say to look for in the color? Brown versus grey or whatever? I'm guessing dark brown means you're chewing through hardpan but light grey means you're hitting silt or something nasty. Never had a chance to pick an old-timer's brain like that, most of the vets I know are long gone or retired and don't talk shop. Seems like something you can't learn from a manual, you gotta see it happen a few times to really get it.
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the_max3mo ago
That "gotta see it happen a few times to really get it" line hits close to home @aaron740. My old man used to say the same thing about reading ground conditions on the backhoe. He'd spit out his chew and point at the mud coming up and say "see that gray? That's the clay talking back, tells you you're about to hit water." He never explained it in any manual way either, just expected you to watch and figure it out. One time I asked him about the brown vs dark brown thing and he said dark means you're grinding through decomposed granite, which is tough but predictable. Light grey or almost white mud usually means you're in a rotten spot where the ground might just swallow your bucket.
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adams.uma3mo ago
Read an interview with an old excavator once who said the same thing @the_max.
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