Materials List

All measurements are imperial inches and feet.

Lumber
19 pcs. of 2 X 10, 16 foot long for framing

35 boards of 1 X 6, 16 foot long

16 pcs. of 2 X 6, 16 inches long for retainers

Other Parts
6 pcs. styrofoam billets, 20 inches wide, 9 or 10 inches thick, 8 foot long. These are standard billets made by Dow Chemical.

4 pcs. corner brackets. More about them here.

4 pcs. inch-and-a-half pipes, length to suit conditions

32 machine bolts (hex heads), 9/16 X 3 inches

32 nuts, 9/16

32 large washers for above bolts (5/8 washers work best)

Some 4-inch galvanized spiral nails for framing. Don't use shorter or smooth nails

Some 3-inch galvanized spiral nails for decking.

8 tiedown rings (the screw-in type)

8 or 12 old car tires as bumpers, depending on how many tires you want per side.

Source of Materials

In Canada, the lumber, foam billets and pipes can be purchased from most building supply stores. We bought our lumber and foam billets at Collins Home Hardware in Chapleau Ontario. Their phone number is 1-705-864-1030. If you cannot find the foam billets in the U.S.A. locally, try American Micro Industries, Inc.

In 2002 we paid $70.00 Canadian funds for each foam billet 20 X 10 X 96 inches.

The corners can be ordered from any machine shop or from Superior Machine and Hydraulics Ltd. That shop has all the specs on file and will ship world-wide if you desire.

The nuts and bolts can be bought at Chapleau Auto Parts or at another automotive parts store near you.

Tools Needed

A scrap piece of 1/2-inch plywood, about 30 to 36 inches square to set the corners on during assembly. That makes a flat surface, since you will probably work on the beach or in the grass.

Cutting the 2 X 10 Lumber

Make 4 pieces exactly 16 foot long.

Cut the remaing 15 pieces so that they are shorter than 16 foot by twice their thickness. If you use dressed lumber, that usually comes to about 15 foot and 9 inches. To get this length correctly, measure your lumber's thickness, double that and deduct it from 16 foot. That way your dock will end up being exactly 16 X 16.

What does it cost?

In 2002 we built 15 docks for about 30,000. in Canadian Dollars. That was all for materials and included no labour. Since we bought so much lumber and so many foam billets and corner brackets at once, we saved a bit of money no doubt.

About us

General Remarks

The simple square shape of this dock makes it easy to build. The use of standard materials keeps waste to a minimum. T-shaped or L-shaped docks are more difficult to make.

If you reduce the size, you will probably regret it because smaller docks are tippier. Being 16 X 16, this dock will give you a stable and comfortable platform. Its sides are long enough for tying up four modest boats. You can put a bench or some lawn furniture on it and still have room to move.

The two trickiest problems with making a floating dock are keeping the dock in position and stopping it from coming apart at the corners after a few years. With this dock, both of those problems are solved by the steel corner brackets.

The dock is held in place by 4 pipes that are dropped down to the lake bottom through sleeves. The pipes are not driven in. The pipes have no plates at the bottom and therefore burry themsleves slightly in the sand or muck by their own weight. There are no troublesome chains or cables that get in the way or have to be adjusted.

When you want to move the dock, you simply stand on the dock and pull the pipes out.

The method of anchoring the dock with the 4 pipes works well if your water is not more than about 8 feet deep. In deeper water you would probably need stiffer (larger) pipe.

If your lake freezes over, be sure to pull your pipes out in the fall, otherwise they will bend when the ice shifts in the spring. The dock itself can stay in the water during winter and freeze in without suffering harm. Just tie a rope to one of the tiedown rings and fasten it on shore.

Here are some docks coming out of hibernation. The picture was taken on April 25, 2003. We get about 30 inches of ice.

Pipe comes in 21 foot lengths here. In our situation, we cut the full lengths either in half to get two long sections, or in three 7-foot pieces.

Pulling the pipes out is usually easy. But if the lake bottom is soft, the pipes will have sunk a little way into the muck, by their own weight. In that case you might not be able to pull them out with your bare hands. We use a modified JackAll jack when a pipe is stuck in the muck. Automotive supply stores usually sell these strong jacks, at least they do in Canada.

Wrap the short piece of chain twice round the pipe where it comes out of the dock. Then start jacking.

Our jack has a piece of chain permanently attached to it, and also a grab-hook for the loose end of the chain. To lighten the jack, we have cut off about half of the upright bar and handle. Note also the safety rope that lets you fish the jack out if you drop it in the water.

The styrofoam floatation billets are made by Dow Chemical and can be ordered through a building supply store. In case you have trouble locating the right billets, we got ours from our local Home Hardware building supply. Ask for Doug Collins. His number is 705-864-1030.

With 6 billets under it, the dock floats high and is very stable, even when several persons are on it. Without a load, the dock will float in about three inches of water.

If you plan to load and unload a floatplane from a dock like this, it will have to support several people and a lot of baggage. In that case, you will need more than 6 styrofoam billets to support the greater weight. Our airplane dock has styrofoam solidly right across without any vacant spaces. That takes 16 billets.

We had a Beaver floatplane tied to one of these docks for several years. The dock never moved, not even with strong winds pushing against the airplane.

If you want to tie a floatplane to one of these docks, you will have to make sure that the pipes don't stick up very high above the dock. Otherwise the horizontal stabilizer will hit. We kept two or three sets of pipe for our airplane dock. As the water went down, we switched to shorter pipes.