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Bloke, try searching "styrofoam pontoons". There seems to be quite a few ideas on how to construct them, albeit for small fishing crafts and not picnic tables.

What about plastic barrels? My dad and I built a dock 8' x 12' using 6 plastic 55 gallon barrels. They can be picked up for pretty cheaply if purchased used. The barrels give you more flexibilty to adjust the height of your dock etc...

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar ... -1/SANNEWS" target="_blank

I used to have a floating ... hulk that involved some large "styrofoam" floats. Expanded polystyrene, I believe.

When this contraption went off to be hauled out, it left a trail of little polystyrene beads behind all the way. The floats were waterlogged at this point, and they all tore loose and fell off at the lift; I spent the better part of a day wading around in the canal pulling them out. Expanded polystyrene is basically latent garbage.

There were also a couple barrels, big red-brown plastic olive barrels. I fished them into place upside down, and filled them with air through a garden hose. They held up fine.

Just make sure you buy the right kind of styrofoam. They sell closed cell and open cell types.
Either one works as a dry packing or insulating material, but open cell is bad for floating.
Open cell will float for a while, but will eventually fill with water and sink to the bottom.

But, if the styrofoam is unprotected (i.e.--no shell) what happens when it receives minimal trauma?

--R.O.

Rick Oakes wrote:But, if the styrofoam is unprotected (i.e.--no shell) what happens when it receives minimal trauma?

Little beads floating around, and it gets waterlogged and loses some of its flotation. A cloth & paint cover will contain the gradual disintegration, but I doubt it seals the water out for long.

जीवन एक हार्न देने के लिए बहुत छोटा है

Find a local user of a product called 'Instapack'. Find a cardboard box approximately the size of the block of foam you want and line it with plastic film. Shoot the foam inside the box and let it 'free-blow' to the top of the box. Trim the excess off and put the blocks of foam inside large plastic bags.

'Instapack' used to be blown with Freon but I think the newer formulations are water-blown. Just make sure it's a closed-cell foam.

The stuff you buy in pressurized cans will work, too... as long as the stuff is closed-cell.

My vote would be for large black (sunlight resistant) PVC pipes with end caps, filled with closed-cell foam

You reckon that after farting, a person would ordinarily be filled to the same volume with foam?

It sounds like belt-and-suspenders engineering - if the pipe seal fails, foam will provide some buoyancy and perhaps the vessel won't sink beneath sea, lost with all hands. More trouble and trash than it's worth, though, if lives are not at stake.

bloke wrote: Isn't "filled with air" more buoyant than "filled with foam" ?

yes of course - until it leaks; which is why canoes have foam-filled buoyancy compartments.

Yes, ... that there is two words.

start saving up gallon plastic milk jugs and keep the caps....about 50 should do...sort serious about this. I think it could work.

k

On the lakes near Branson, MO, a significant number of the docks and slips are floated by very large blocks of styrofoam.