On Feb 15, 7:48*am, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:41:01 -0800 (PST), jamesgangnc





wrote:
On Feb 15, 7:06*am, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:
On Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:47:53 -0800 (PST), wrote:
Has anyone built a floating dock using 55 gallon plastic barrels? I
have 5 available and would like to make a dock that is at least
12x12 . Does anyone have any easy plans to use or suggestions? Thanks!

I haven't done it, but I helped my buddy down at the farm equipment
shop build one - it worked pretty good.

Two things we discovered - you need to put some ballast in the barrels
- we used water. *Second, depending on how long it will be, build it
in sections - not as one humongous long dock.

What he did was use PT decking and built a frame with 2x8's - three
barrels to the sides and one in the middle. *He secured the barrels by
framing them in - didn't need to secure directly, but he did use
polyethylene rope - 1/2" as a safety measure.

The ballast was 25% of the volume of the barrel.

Works great.

Why would partially sink the barrels. *Sounds stupid to me.

Got me - seems to work fine. *No bounce to the dock, very little
movement and it's fairly long - roughly 60 feet.

I suppose it would sound stupid to a smart guy like you.

But it works.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You don't give a reason for filling the barrrels 25%. Simple math
tells anyone that if 8 barrels was originally enough floatation and
you fill them 25% with water then it's going to now take 10 barrels.
Did you fill them to lower the dock level in relation to the water?
Because the poster might be able to compensate for that by getting the
barrels further into the structure and not have to put water in them.

Plus if you're thinking long term then the barrels probably should be
filled with expanding foam. Real dock floats are filled with
expanding foam. The other problem with plastic barrels is that they
are generally not uv resistant. At least with the foam you can live
with some deterioration longer.

A dock is a lot of expensive pressure treated lumber. My simple
10'x10' platform with three 12' walkway sections was a grand in lumber
5 years ago. I'd not be too happy if I was dealing with cracking
plastic barrels today because of uv damage. But I can see the
attraction in using barrels because floats set me back another grand.