Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Floating or Stationary Dock

Thanks for all of the information. This has been great.

That's what we did... We used a large pin to attach to the walkway.

Dock Build Thread

The weights are 5 gallon buckets. One is full of cement and the other is 3/2 full. All were pored with a hook in them in the center. They are hooked together with air craft cable that is stainless steel. The outer most corners of the dock have the pulley hanging from it from my 6X6 block. The pulley is just a cloth line pulley 8". The one bucket stays on the bottom while the other hangs halfway from the bottom. This was done on both outer most corners of the dock.

When the dock then moves quickly up or down side to side the two pails need to pull through the water for the dock to move. These act like big dampeners cutting the movement in the dock by 70% maybe even more. They act as anchors too.

If my barrels were partly full of water they too would have to move up or down for the dock to move. With all that mass in the barrels it would have stopped all the movement in the dock.

Below is a picture of my first idea. I simplified it greatly with four five gallon buckets.


Cheers Don.

Has anybody with a floating dock had to dig out the area right under the walkway out to the dock platform? If I go with a floating dock my shorelines doesn't drop off very quickly and I am not sure I want those black flotation floats just sitting against the bottom of the pond or in 6 inches of water. To get the walkway to actually "float" I may have to dig a trench?

Zep, for me I had to take out some stone rip rap but my bank gos from 4/12 to 10/12 after the first 6 feet. See picture.

I think if you have a long long slow slope you may have to dig a trench in there some how.

When my gang way is on the mud the barrel on the end of the gang way is in the mud bottom too. The dock then hinges down. This is if we have over 40"s of water loss. This is the case for about 2 weeks in the summer.

Cheers Don.

Is there a reason why you can not just move your floats a little farther out from the shore? Would this keep the floats off bottom? And if the walkway becomes less stable by moving the floats out, you could add outriggers to the walkway. Out riggers like some canoes have. It might give you a wide area on the walkway to store some stuff.
Tracy

I have a floating dock and although at the time I thought it was a good idea I will be redoing mine to a fixed dock. They make a lot of pole platforms these days that have real wide bottoms to them so you don't even have to put the poles into the ground. Fleet and Farm sells all kinds of cool dock stuff. They even have poles that you can ratchet up or down depending where you want your dock v.s. water level. Or if one side sinks a little farther than the other when it settles you can adjust it by a few clicks on the other side and your good to go. The weight of the dock itself holds the poles in place. Only thing is you have to make sure your water does not come up so far it tries to float the dock off. Of course you can always anchor end of dock to shore. Bottom line is I like to have sure footing on my dock and I cant get that with a floating dock. Course I conned into using 30 gallon barrels instead of 55 maybe that would have made a difference I don't know. But I am 220 pounds and my parents would like to get on the dock and all also so I just need a more stable setup.

RC

Thanks RC. That's exactly my concerns.

Mine is 8' X24' and it moves a small amount by is pretty stable. I have store bought flotation that is rectangular shape ( also good for FHMs to spawn on). And I built in overkill into the floats


The "T" is 8X24

Pat did you buy the blue colored floats? A buddy of mine builds docks on Olin Lake in Kentucky and that is what they use. The Army Corp of Engineers dictate the materials and construction for Olin. He said they are around $100 each and can support a huge amount of weight.

Bill

Will try to find out more info from the guy that built it, these units are black.