Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Floating Dock

I've looked at various threads on this subject and have a good idea of how to do it. But I have one question. A friend asked why not build it with a metal frame? So I thought I'd ask the experts. Any answers would be helpful.

To me it seems like the metal from would be harder to work with. Plus being over water it will rust.

Many thanks

Rust, weight and maybe the biggest one is most guys have hammers, screw guns, etc, but not welders by the pond.

Just like you don't see many floor joists in residential homes made from metal. Wall studs yes, floor joist no.

Another vote for rust.

Then there are just some of us that are weird and learned to weld at 9 years old that can't help ourselves. I-beams and channel iron just seem more natural to work with than 2x6's. I need to dig out the photos of the building process of my dock some day and post them.

The floating portion of my dock is wood but I did not build it. Bought it off Craigs list used, but did build a steel channel iron subframe that supports the two halves together better than what I thought the original wood did and also provides the home made hinges salvaged from large farm machinery planter markers (with grease zerks).

I would not be afraid of driving my Polaris 900 Ranger on any of it.

I tend to overdo things. It is an addiction.

I do have a couple of old army truck beds that have aluminum stringers that I have been thinking of taking floats and making a floating swimming dock from. That along with a dozen other projects I may or may not get to.

I used a warehouse shelving rack upright as the subframe for my gangway. Rigid as can be, and I'd surmise lighter than a wooden equal. There are lots of projects over/in water here in Texas built of metal...mostly oil field pipe though.

But then, I'm like snrub in tat I learned to weld early in life...maybe around 12 yrs old. snrub has always been the over-achiever.

Yes, I might have been the exaggerator also. I might have been 10 or 12 years old. Can't remember for sure when I burned up my first rod but my first memory of needing to weld was when I had the end off of an old vacuum cleaner that looked sort of like a funnel. Wanted legs welded on it so it would be one of those overhead gravel bins for my toy dump truck to drive under. Structo made the toy overhead gravel bins, but they were beyond my budget.

So I conned my older brother into welding some steel legs of some scrap pieces onto this paper thin vacuum cleaner contraption. Envision a Lincoln buzz box AC welder with Fleetweld 180 (E6011) one eighth inch rod welding quarter inch thick legs onto 18 gage (heck might have been 22 ga. - it was thin). Not a pretty sight. I must have been about 7 years old or so. He got it done, sorta. It was then I decided I needed to be able to weld.

Two or three or maybe four years later (can't remember for sure) my brother tack welded up a cattle feeder made out of pipe and I got to learn to weld welding it up. I'm quite sure he must have re-did most of the welds once I was not around, but I did start early. Always enjoyed the metal more than the wood.

Two of my oldest grandsons helped me weld this dock up in our farm shop (then moved it in two sections into place with a telehandler). They learned a lot during the construction. Not only welding but grinding, digging post holes, mixing concrete in a 3pt concrete mixer, using a laser level to cut the posts off at the right height, etc. The third teenage came along in time to help install the floating dock and put the boards on. Had a good time with them, as well as swimming with them off the dock after completion last summer. I did the painting because did not wanting them breathing that nasty stuff. I did have to take a picture of a big ugly run in the paint - ughhhh.

OK so I have to ask...why after building such an outstanding looking steel framed dock why did you use logs as the support? Steel pipe driven down into the bottom would've been my natural inclination.

Not sure how long most wood docks last.
We had a dock on a Texas public lake built from oil field pipe.
It lasted over 25 years before much of it needed to be replaced.
When we had the big drought we had a company replace a lot of the pipe.

Maintaining and painting the metal will keep it from rusting. Also, most of us like snrub and myself have shops to do the pre fabrication and then ways to transport it down to the pond. We used the boards that look like lumber but are composite.

You have probably have seen this thread but you can see the detailed process here:

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=269335#Post269335

Good observation.

Those "hedge posts" will still be there long after any steel pipe (unless maybe it is half in thick wall) will be long gone. Those are "Osage Orange". They do not rot. Termites only affect the outer layer of bark and outermost wood.

Below the dam of this pond is a scrap pile of old 4-6" hedge posts. I put some of them in the pond attached to steel post uprights as structure/cover. These posts are already probably 50 years old and most are still sound. The fence they were in I took out last summer just after my new pond was constructed. My dad built that fence when I was a small child, built from posts he cut out of hedge rows on our farms. Some of the post were split posts I can remember my dad and brothers taking a sledge with steel wedges and splitting 12" posts four ways or 5-8" posts in half, to get the line size posts. So they are already 50 years old and could have been put in another fence. I'll try to get a picture of what the 50 year old posts look like later today.

The posts used in the pond were a minimum of 12" diameter. I used a 24" hydraulic post hole digger on the front of my tractor loader to dig the holes, and I had one post I could not use because it would not go into the hole. They are big. They are set in concrete 4' deep. My son and I cut a couple of them and the son and DIL cut the rest.

Those posts will be there when my grandsons that helped build the dock are dead and gone and the pond filled up with silt.

Also part of the reason for using them is nostalgia. Those Osage Orange were planted in tree rows for fence lines by my ancestors. They used to sub-divide nearly every quarter section in this part of the world. Our farm here has been in the family since 1870, originally sold from rail road right of way given to the railroads as part of their enticement to build the railroad lines. Although the posts came off another farm of ours, the Osage Orange is a part of the history of settlers of this part of the country. I put Osage Orange stumps in the bottom of the pond. It only seemed fitting for them to be a part of this pond. And they last almost forever.

If I would have had the time and the energy, I would have liked to have some made into lumber and built the whole dock out of it. But I am better at metal than wood and have a fully equipped shop and several welders.

Long story. Sorry.

But it's a cool story...

VERY cool story!!

We have Osage Orange here as well...that wood lasts a long time.

I'm considering sinking some Honey Locust in the big pond for structure...same deal, it's darn near indestructible, nothing eats it and I don't know if it will EVER rot.

Unfortunately it also has 3-6" thorns (think spears) so doing darn near anything with it has LOADS of added, um, challenges? Excitement?

Pain.

I don't know what will last longer. Black Locust, Honey Locust or Osage Orange. All last a very long time.

I used a honey locust trunk for a bridge railing and it degraded a lot faster than I thought it would. not like black locust.