When I woke up this morning, I heard a diesel engine and other machinery wondering what is happening. In a partial sleepy fog, I went to investigate. A very kind, cheerful Lowe's delivery driver greeted me with, " I hope where I left the lumber is ok next to the other pile of wood that I saw. I didn't want to wake you."
Now we have nearly all of the supplies to start on the dock. At breakfast, I mention to my host we could start work on the dock rather than clearing the pond trail. He agreed.
Here is the dock before we started.
Notice in these next few photos that the dock lists to the left significantly. It also shakes from side to side.
I straightened it with a rope tied to a nearby tree.
I also secured it with scrap lumber.
Straight dock before installing bracing.
Note the screw gun with rope to prevent me from dropping it in the water, tape measure, wheel barrow for carrying supplies & lumber, Styrofoam to float tools and lumber on the pond to the end of the dock and a large container of deck screws. I secured the straight dock with the X bracing.
A photo showing progress on removing old, rotting planks. I also install an end-cap piece of wood that helped to stabilize the dock. As I walked back and forth, we noticed that the end is stable but the 2 other sets of pilings still sway side to side. We will install the new support beams and planks before determining of additional X bracing is needed.
After I removed all of the planks from the water section, I installed support beams to hold the new planks.
I asked my HelpX host for a crow bar to pull out old nails. He gladly visited Lowe's!
The new tool made the work of pulling up old planks and pulling out old nails so much easier. I then noticed the name on it, "Klein Tools." As I approach the 1 year anniversary of retirement, the name reminded me of a manager who helped me tremendously at the bank.
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