One of my two major projects this season was to completely replace all of the floats on camp’s massive dock. Over the past few seasons I have noticed that the dock had a tendency to…sink so it was time to do some work!
Our dock is three pieces that make a roughly 40’ by 30’ ‘T’ shape. One piece gets pulled up on shore for the winter and the other two pieces live up on the hill behind our local marina. Here they were in December:
The first step was sourcing plastic floats that were roughly the same size as the existing ones. With the ongoing supply chain issues in all sectors this proved slightly difficult but I managed to find some great ones from a dock supply company in Florida. I won’t shock you with how much new plastic floats cost!
The next step was to remove the old floats. They were HEAVY, mostly fully of water, and all of the bolts were rusted permanently in place. Ratchets worked on some bolts but some required cutting, prying or just general banging until they broke free. I used a hydraulic jack to lift the dock frame section by section and slide the old floats out to make room for the new ones.
My work pictures end there because it got too involved to measure, drill and bolt in the new floats with stainless steel hardware. At the end I replaced nine floats using 36 sets of bolts, lock nuts and washers. Drilling the aluminum dock ate up three specialty drill bits. I tore open eight of my ten knuckles fighting with rusty bolts. In all it took around 30 man-hours to get it done from start to finish!
Many thanks to my dad, Wayne, a retired physician who also happens to be super helpful with projects like these and is willing to work for free!
Here is the view from the worksite on top of the hill! Our marina stores hundreds of boats on the hill in super organized lines that stretch for miles!
Check back soon as we complete our other major project this spring…all new bathrooms for each cabin!
