Past customer asked my to price out a dock on thier large pond.
Dock to be approx. 10×12. Probably IPE decking on PT frame.
Here is the question part. They do not want Expanded Poly floats. They want 55 gal. barrels.
Anyone have a decent solution to attach the wood to the barrels? And what would you paint the barrels with if it was your dock. I can’t quite get my head around how to bolt into a closed drum, and I would think all hardware oughtta be SS even in fresh water.
Weld brackets to the drums? seems like I could burn thru and make a water leak ( I am NOT that good at welding)
Any how, ideers be appreciated.
Replies
Sphere,
Drums rust and sink.. depending on what was in them you may be contributing to pollution..
But just build the sides deep enough to contain the drums in the heaviest wave anticipated and let them worry about it..
Its up to them as to what was in them, they supply them.
Waves? If this pond gets waves, the end is near anyway...LOL
No, they may want to "entertain" guests..say 8 people, on it. I guess they like getting chewed up by skeeters. Oh, and a small johnboat for bass fishing will be tied up to it.
For attachment, why not use some straps that are tight enough that the drums don't slip around in them.
As for rust protection......... good luck. Maybe if you use thirteen or fourteen coats of bulletproof alkyd enamel.........
Politics is the antithesis of problem solving.
Straps. Good idea. I'll have to noodle on that.
Duane, whatever you do man- know what was in those drums before drilling, passing a torch, or heaven forbid welding on them things. that very thing was what precipatated in me being a no navel wonder. I have used plastic drums, which are very tough by the way, that contained some type of teat wash that ,I procured from some dairy farmers, that I strapped to the bottom of the dock with nylon strapping. heck feller maybe if your lucky you can collect enough of the wash from the drums and have a teat washing party------DW ;)
LMAO...you kill me Dewayne.
Actually, plastic works. I can get brandy new drums, like I did for my woodstove for 50$ ea. IIRC. They be unpainted too, I guess maybe shoot em with an epoxy deck enamel might work.
I wunner if four would hold it all up? Ya wanna come test it out? I do know, Ipe don't float.
"I wunner if four would hold it all up?"PT and IPE` have high density.Used to be the floats here were made of spruce or fir. The first guy who got an idea to build from PT to avoid rebuilding every ten years or so used the same design he always had.it hung just about even with the water instead of about 14" up
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Here is how the "Canadians" do it.
http://www.canadianfishing.com/dock/
FWIW, I think steel barrels are a bad idea.
http://www.petedraganic.com/
Edited 7/7/2007 7:42 pm ET by PeteDraganic
That was pretty cool. I like the pipe anchor idea.
I now agree, metal drums are more trouble than they are worth.
Now to just convince THEM.
Styrofoam or extruded are not options, they are adamant about that.
I would think that by containing the barrel in boxed chambers underneath that it would not have to be tight fastened.
Also, can you get metal barrels that are clean? The only ones I can get are contaminated in ways that would not be safe around fresh water.
And they would rust out soon enough. That is why most people don't use them anymore.
We can get same gallon size plastic that will stand up to a lot more abuse and weathering and will be quieter if they are insistent on air containers for flotation instead of the XPS. The plastic were used for things like concentrated apple juice from New Zealand so no unsafe residues.
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I can get brand spankin new barrels. In steel, i'll need to hunt down local plastic ones I reckon.
Or find a wrecked pontoon boat and scarf up the aluminum poontoons, but with scrap being high dollar stuff these days, that may not be too easy.
What about these plastic drums (Marine Float Drums).http://www.tigerboatdocks.com/floats.htm
http://www.dockbuilders.com/FloatDrums.htm
http://www.overtons.com/modperl/product/catalog.cgi?r=browse&aID=25L&cname=Dock-Floats-Drums.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Use their steel drums, and fill them with expanding foam. "Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
That'd be a budget buster I imagine.
Well, geeze. That makes too much sense. LOL.
Ok, I like the one site, and saved it. Now I'll figgure out the weight and double it for safety, and see what that would cost.
Thinking more. I'd not know how much poundage a 55 Gal. Drum would float either, at least these provide some numbers to work with.
Ofcourse, there is budget in thier minds, these floats may be a hard sell.
Thanks Bill.
Duane
An US gallon of fresh water weighs about 8.3 pounds, so a 55 gallon drum full of air will take a load of 456 pounds less the weight of the drum to sink it.
If you use plastic, strap them in place with rope or some sort of webbing (seat belt webbing?) with the bung down and leave the bung off. A little water inside will reduce the load capacity but add to the steadiness of the float as long as the barrels are spread around well
Ron
Edited 7/8/2007 7:56 am by ronbudgell
forget steel drums.... plastic drums & tanks are everywhere if you look.... usually dark blue or white... and usually free if you know where to look... you can find em 55gal (standard) and 30 gal... a bit more rare.... and you can find the 225gal square ones in a metal cage, these you usually have to buy but $40 is a going rate...
try the coin op car washes... their soaps come in them...
you can get stainless banding looks just like the banding on your stacks of lumber... and a banding tool from harbor freight is $30.... build em in tight with your frameing and they aren't going anywhere anyway... the banding is just extra...
you do want some ballast in em... ie about 20-25% water in the drum... makes a much better dock/platform...
the bigger your platform the better... square is the most stable shape to balance it out... so if you can go just inside 16ft x 16 ft materal wise cost won't be much if any more with very little waste... six 55gal (plastic) drums 3 on each side... i don't like the idea of center floats if there are any waves at all... they will flex the platform while ride'n the waves...
Galv bolts with big washers... no nails on the frame.... i prefer a welded band of angle iron all the way around the frame...
p
Cool, This is looking more fun by the minute.
There are scads of small farm ponds around here, some big enough for a small boat...I might see if I can sell some more , when I get this one done.
And fer sure, I'll be the first one to cast a line off of it and take dip.
"take dip"Friday I saw a sign on one of the docks on my lake that said. "We don't skinny dip, We chunky Dunk.And the OP was almost right. I did use a handfull of nails in mime. But that was only hold some it in place until I could get the holes drilled for the screws bolts.At least for the corners you want through bolting. If you can get metal corners great. If not use cut some chunks of 4x4 and mount those in the corners and cross bolt throuh them.Everything else is screwed, using UnPiffin screws. A dock takes a lot of twisting action and will pop out nails like a potato gun.You are talking about a pond, so you don't get much wave action. But still people walking around or worse jumping off will torque it. And there will be at least one storm a year that would pop some nails..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
At one time I had worked out the weight/sq ft to use in figuring the floating dock with people.I just did a google and came up with this one.http://www.mercomarine.com/FAQ.htmYou might want to also look at their plans.When I was looking at doing one I don't think that I found that site, but I had googled a number of different plans (many the manufactors/distributors of the floats) and calculated it based on the size of the floats that they used..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Edited 7/8/2007 8:34 am by BillHartmann
sorry, I meant to actually answer the Q too.
You know the strapping that is used to ship bunks of plywood and such? Every lumberyard has a strapping tool and a roll. Seems that ould be used to tie a piece of hardware to the barrel.
For something heavier, I think the simpson catalouge has some strapping and clamps
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The plumbing straps now are available in both soft iron and plastic.One of the neightbor has a swim platform with some kind of old galvanized water tank straped in the middle of it.since all of the support is in the middle it is unstable as hell.The kids love to get on it hand play king of the "hill". Here we can only use XPS for replacement. And few places even allow that. You have to use the foam encapsulated in plastic..
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Firms that sell new steel drums sell new plastic ones - 40 gallons for about $40.
I've built a couple of floaters on a little lake I lived on and we used food grade 50 gallon drums, built the frame around them and used pressure treated decking so the decking was just sitting on the barrells. The cool part was we then could just roll the whole thing into the water with minimal effort. We sealed the threaded caps with some kind of caluk and there has never been a problem, though none are over 5 years old. Thought some kind of blown foam might have been a good idea but the nice thing about these are they would be relatively easy to re place. I can get thos drums for 10$ apiece from an old guy that collects them from a ice cream place and sells those and 5 gallon buckets for 1$. I was doing this with neighbors so wasn't worried about life span, but the one weekness may be in chaffing but I would think that would take a mighty long time as they are quite thick.
I like FastEddie's idea, but what about spraying the drums with Line-X or Rhino. Should seal them up tight and make them virtually leak/rust proof. The downside would be the cost.... but if they want drums, give them some sensible options. Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. -- Ronald Reagan
see if you can salvage the pontoons from an old pontoon boat...they are made to float a deck, already have attachment provisions, and are aluminum.
I've dealt with floating docks on Norris Lake in Tennessee. The method used there is just to build a grid of lumber. The rectangles in the grid are significantly narrower than the drums, so the entire dock or houseboat sits on top of the drums. Almost all of these have had the drums replaced with styrofoam blocks, but even in the old days, there's no strapping or other attachments.
I've had good luck painting underwater/ wave line metal with " severe environment epoxy" from graingers. water-based and a little pricey but two coats will last for years in the gulf of mexico. ( fresh water is like putting metal in wd-40 compared to salt). I'd have somebody weld some tabs for mounting on the drums before CLEANING and painting. Jim