Help Building Dock

[leechlake]

We have a dock at my dad's place that is about 110 feet long. We pulled out the old dock and we've replaced the first 60 feet with a permanent dock and now want to finish the rest with a floating dock 50 feet long. That last part of the dock always flooded from time to time so rather than have to deal with that we will make it floating. Also the dock does stay in year round since it is situated on a lake that has a small river on it so it stays open all year long for the most part. This system has worked for over 50 years, we probably will haul the floating sections in every fall though.

I bought 16 floats from Manards so we can do that and also make a floating platform once we have the dock done. The floats are 3'x4' and 10" high. They are rated for 500 pounds. My thought is to build 4 12' sections that are approximately 3' wide and have a float on each end of the 12' section and nothing in the middle of the section. My initial thought was to box the floats in under 2x6 or 2x8 stringers but have seen some things where you'd actually build the dock sections on top of the whole float. We would then pound pipe in and attach some hardware so the dock sections stay in place.

Anyone have experience with making such a dock. In a perfect world we'd like to make it at my house in the Cities and haul it up there. I have a pond in my backyard so after making the first section we can bring it down there and test it out.

[delcecchi]

If you make them 4 feet wide, you can use 8 foot boards cut in half. And 3 feet is really narrow for a dock.

If you are going to bring them on shore in the fall and put them back in the spring, don't make them too heavy. I made two dock pallets out of treated wood before realizing that they were much heavier than cedar.

So, my main advice is figure out how you will handle them before you build them. Then build a prototype and verify that you will be able to move them the way you planned. Secondarily, lay out a plan on the driveway with chalk or something and make sure you can do what you want to do, like setting stuff down and still getting by it. Stuff like gas cans, rods, nets, coolers etc.

[Jameson]

The dock I am used to working with is about 3.5 feet wide. It is a nice width for building decks as you can take an 8' boards and cut a foot of bad off of the ends or middle to get two good planks. Each deck is generally 3.5' x 8' long.

As far as building your dock bracket system, look into a dock that is common on Lake Minnetonka, some brands are Crepeau, Servadock, Niccum, etc... Build a bracket and stringers similarly, or buy some and attach your float to the bottom of the bracket.

[delcecchi]

Depends on where you buy your boards. The lumberyard I use in cook sells only pretty good boards. Ones with major defects go on some scrap or sale pile.