I bit the bullet this weekend and built the floating dock. My pond is only 3/4 ac so when I staked out the 10x16' size onshore, I quickly realized that it was too big. Since this was my first dock and it was partly proof of concept, I settled on 8'x10' and headed to the hardware store. I spent total of $150 including galvanized screws and plummer's tape (roll of about 3/4" metal strip with holes in the middle) to hold the 55gal barrells in place. My main worry was about the barrells popping out from under the dock, because the 2x6s don't go past the middle of the barrell. It took two of us less than 8 hrs to put all this together with less than ideal tools. We jumped on the dock to get it rocking and it looked like the barrells would have stayed in place even without the metal strip holding them in place. I still like the insurance. I will take some pictures next week and I have to figure out how to post them here. Had I known how easy, cheap and fun this was going to be, I would have built this dock last year. Now I have to build the walkway.
