Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site Drone footage of pond build - Livingston Co., MO

After finishing the dam, and thinking that we would have a normal year precipitation wise, I wanted to get the dock and a few other projects completed before the pond gained measurable water. I was, of course, on a budget as well as not interested in a floating dock, but rather one that would be permanently fixed (or at least so I thought.....I will get to that later). The dock was to have a slip for an old pontoon boat I had managed to land and have a ramp for access to the bank as well as the island. The overall platform was a 24x24 foot square (minus the slip for the pontoon).

After some research, I chose to re-purpose some of the black locust timber that was cut out of the original ditch. Everything I could find about them said they would have no problem holding up underwater for decades due to them being almost all heartwood. It wasn't hard to find larger, decently straight candidates for my posts.

My largest issue was the fact that there was nearly solid rock in the area where the dock was to be built. It was impossible to dig any kind of hole for the posts. My solution was a couple of things. One, level an area for each post and place a large flat rock down. Two, center each post on each rock and brace it up. Three, pile rocks and dirt around the base of each post to provide some amount of anchoring. I managed to get this done with the help of my skid loader, but it was still a fair undertaking for one person.

Once the main posts were braced, I used a transit to mark elevations and notch the posts with a chainsaw. Getting the 2x12 band lumber attached made me feel a lot better about all those posts sticking up in the air with not much holding them. I used 2x10 joists and deck boards to finish out the platform. I've built cabinets and furniture for various projects in the past, and this was certainly not cabinet worthy work, but for the terrain, elements, lack of man power, and the materials used, it would do just fine. I really felt like the dock couldn't go anywhere since it was all tied together on top, but as a final step I used a couple heavy rocks and some cable to anchor the front side.

Here are a few pictures of the project. The dock story isn't finished, to say the least.......