Vermeer is the innovator in developing top down cutting. All Vermeer Terrain Levelers surface excavation are designed around this technique. Top down cutting is a technique that allows the cutter teeth to gain penetration without using the machine’s tractive effort to drive the teeth into the rock. As the unit travels forward and the drum rotates, the teeth on top of the drum are advancing over the top of the rock surface. As the teeth come down toward the rock surface, they make contact by impacting the rock. This is significantly different from bottom up cutting.  Bottom up cutting, the teeth first make contact with the rock and then the machine drives the teeth into the rock for penetration. Top down cutting allows the teeth to be positioned for greater tooth penetration before contact with the rock is made.

There are two main benefits from top down cutting. The first is efficiency; more horsepower goes into cutting rock and less into movement of the machine. Bottom up cutting requires more tractive effort from the machine to drive the teeth in the rock face. Top down cutting does not require tractive effort for rock penetration and allows more horsepower to be used to cut the rock.

The second benefit is material sizing. There are several factors that control product size, one of which is tooth penetration.  Increased tooth penetration increases the material size and decreased tooth penetration reduces the material size. This can be done by changing the drum depth. As the drum depth decreases, tractor speed increases resulting in deeper tooth penetration. As the drum depth increases, tractor speed decreases resulting in less tooth penetration.

Additional Features:
● Combing Concrete From Steel Rebar
● Improved Tooth Angle
   - Ability to use taller gage teeth
   - Ability to use smaller carbide
● Narrow One Piece Gusset (patent pending)
   - Less Material Fines
● Easier Pocket Replacement
   - Replace Pocket/Gusset Subweld