Quote:
Originally Posted by colesfamily
Thank you for the information. The farm jack really does sound like the easiest way to go. It sounds much like the older car jacks we used to use to change a tire. It may be so simple it eluded me. So regarding the farm jack it sounds like the jack foot or base plate sits on the lake bottom and the jack attaches to an outboard deck stringer so that when jacking-up it raises the that section of dock whereby taking the weight off the 4X4 wood dock post. Then I can straighten up the 4X4, reattach it at the proper height and lower the jack to remove it and move on to the next one.
They sure get a lot of money to do that if you hire someone. I also thought the canoe trick was pretty clever but the jack sounds too easy. Thanks again.
Steve
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I put my dock in every year and have 4' X 8' sections, they are very easy to manhandle and level without a jack, however it is far easier to do it with a little help in the water. What I do is if I need to raise it some I'll put a level on the dock, loosen the bolts, slide it up where it needs to go and bang a nail in temporarily to hold the bracket where it needs to be then tighten. When I am doing the assembly in the spring I float them out on one of those pancake tubes, works great. In fact I like the level it sets the dock sections at too.
Bear in mind after a while the wood on the 4X4s gets all beat up over years of use to where no matter how tight you make those brackets they will slip down, at that point replacement is required.
To keep the posts from kicking in or out from a vertical perspective put sufficient cross bracing on the bottom of the posts and attach the opposing posts in a X pattern. That will prevent that and really stiffen up the dock as a whole. Use at least 2X4's for this anything less is useless.
Whatever you do make sure if you put any nails in, use double headed ones so they are easy to get out in the fall when things are disassembled.