hey dont confuse him with that walkway stuff. water's warm there and he likes to get wet.

but now i see its a solid platform. those boards look like one by from the pics.
we give you permission to continue with the work.

Walkway? What?

Got my pilings for the...............walkway!

Whew! Good thing I reminded you! You're welcome.

wtg markn! Now would be a good time to sit back and pop a few tops...

oh is that what those are for i thought they were to put the can on your key ring.

hehe

My neighbor called me early and said, "the tide is low, wanna do those pilings?". Heck yeah.

The actual pilings weren't too bad. Not super heavy and were easy to place. The water jetter, though...... He has a 2" galvanized pipe that's about 16' long. It is designed to operate from above. It is extremely hard to manage from ground level. Very heavy and difficult to move around. Took about an hour, but we got 'em in.

Between the weather and visitors coming for the holidays, I doubt I get much done the next week or so. But this is significant progress.

tide was really high today and supposed to get higher next shot.

you know you want to put as much space between the deck boards as you can stand having. in a hurricane the water surges push up on it and with no spaces, it doesn't dissipate and go though so it punishes the dock and pilings from upward pressure on it.

Tide was really low when we did this. If you look at the picture, those two new pilings were completely out of the water when we started.

picked up another boat yesterday. sailfish 188. i cant help myself.

Nice. Let's go fishing!

I wasn't planning on doing anything today. Still a little nippy to be wading around in the canal.

But the tide got really low so I figured I would take the opportunity.

Got the last if the beams attached to the remaining posts.

Much to my amazement the entire frame is level to the seawall. Woot!

I have a little more framing, then it will be ready for decking.

you dont want the deck hanging over the face board on the water side as then tying up a boat becomes a hassle.

be nice to extend the power to the end and water to have your fish cleaning station out there so easy cleanup.

or at least run the piping with a chord inside to pull thru later.

and put some short boards along the back of the face so you have a backer to put cleats in later on, or attach anything substantial.

maybe prep for a railing so you can have chairs out there and they dont blow off or people fall off. and a larger deck box.

its.looking good

any thoughts on underwater deck lighting. over here the snook and such will hang there at night easy to catch.

I'm going to install some cleats. Not sure about power. We have a pretty bright light out there already. Definitely run water.

I really don't want any railing. Maybe later if we see a need for it.

Yeah, we've talked about it. Probably before summer comes around.

I got some cleats and brackets to secure them. My plan today was to finish tringers for the walkway, get the cleat brackets on, bolt the stringer by the lift to the lift post for some extra strength, and start putting down planks.

All went ok until the planks. I kept stripping the screw heads. They are square heads which aren't much better than phillips. I thought it might have been the bit but I had another that I know is good and still had issues.

I called the dock supply place and got a somewhat unhelpful guy that told me that's what the contractors use. He said he didn't think he had star heads but he would go out and look and call me back. He didnt.

I called back and got a much more helpful guy. He said they could order them and they would get there maybe tomorrow but definitely by Thursday. He said I could get credit for the square head ones.

One other thing. The seawall isn't square to the dock but i can handle that.

All in all a decent day.

yea get the torx head screws. go to home depot. use good deck screws 10 by 2 1/2.

the robertson should have worked for you i cant believe the screw heads striped. you had to have gotten garbage screws. go to h.d. not a boat or dock store for that.

they also have a sale on a set of a drill and an,, impact driver,, which is what you want for that job for 99 bucks complete. check it out and make sure you get that box.
there are others just not that good of a deal.
and buy a few impact bits. Milwaukee are the best but others are good.
and dont put them so close together as a water surge will mess up your whole deck and posts as the water has no place to go but up.
and next hurricane you deck will look like a pretzel.

its not a job for a drill gun. unless you want extra work. especially if yours is not variable speed.

remember to use something for a spacer between the decking boards so they look good.
sorry for so much advice but ive dont a lot of this.

My drill is just a standard battery drill. Probably not getting another one.

I think the pic is showing them closer together than they are. Deck supply recommendation is minimum 1/8" but I'm putting them about 1/4". Neither the seawall nor the dock is perfectly square so I'm having to make some adjustments along the way but it looks OK.

Got my new screws yesterday, and a couple more things I need to finish everything up. They refunded me for the other screws as well as some really expensive bolts I ended up not using. Came out a wash moneywise.

Laid all the boards out so now all I have left is to screw them down.

I'm with Ray Zee here. You are doing yourself a huge disservice by not spending a few bucks on an impact driver for this. Once you use one, you'll never go back to a standard drill to drive screws.

Also, I've only done one deck with composite, but even with an impact driver I found it easier to pre-drill the holes. If you insist on using a regular drill I think that would be a must.

Maybe check with your neighbor. Maybe he has one you can borrow. He seems to have everything else you need. Ha!

Yeah, when i was looking at drills at home depot, some guy told me the same thing.

But im stubborn and I don't really want to buy another drill.

I spaced all my planks and started screwing them in. It took me a while to do the first few because I had to install 3 cleats.

Screwing went a lot better with the star heads. Plus I'm getting better at it as I go. I wont say its gravy now but progress is being made.

Cleats

Got the planks somewhat screwed in. Each one has at least the end screws in. Lots of work...

The walkway is a mess. Trying to get something square that isn't is hard for me. I'll end up trying to saw the ends to make it look somewhat not crooked.

I had 4 tape measures when i started this. I've managed to drop every one in the water. Even if its only in the water for a minute, it's ruined. So I bought a brand new one yesterday. It only took me 5 minutes to kick it in to the water.

The walkway edges were noticeably ragged due to me trying to square and space things as I went. So, I popped a couple lines and sawed the edges. It ain't perfect but it looks ok (if you don't really look at it).

I continued screwing in screws. Now that I'm not in the water, I got my handy dandy indestructible 40 year old black and decker drill. I don't know if I'm just getting the hang of it, or there is something with the drill, but it went much better. Only stripped one but the next one I tried to put in broke the bit so I'm wondering if the bit was just shot. I took the broken bit as a sign to stop for the day.

We had some family stay with us the last few days so I wasn't able to work on anything. But they left this morning so I got to screwin'.

The dock is officially complete! Woot!