Lesson 2

Mama Said, "Always wear your shoes!"

Dear Phil E.,

    Unfortunately,  it takes a keen eye to watch for changes in the sample, and sample recover to tell you when to switch cutting shoes.  The standard shoe fits the bill in loose to stiff, and normally to lightly over-consolidated soils.  But when you hit very stiff to hard, highly over-consolidated soil, it's time to switch to the undersized shoe.  The undersized shoe allows for some swelling of the sample upon entry in to the liner, which means you won't have to wrestle the liner out of the sample tube.  The heavy-duty shoe works well when encountering small cobbles or dense sands. 

Thanks for the question!

Tom    

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