Wood for jetty

Just finished with a machine driver who has dug a few flight ponds for me (low lying flat land land, so just dig & spread, no dams etc.) In one we dug up sections of an oak trunk buried about 5 feet down in the peat & grey clay. The trunk was about 3 ft in diameter & split into two main pieces one about 10 feet long & 2 ft wide & another was 16 feet long, about 2 feet wide & 1 ft at its thickest. Wood rang hard when rapped with my stick.

I got the digger driver to set the 16ft piece as a jetty in one pond, 8 feet buried in the bank & 8 feet sticking into the pond. We set it so that the normal summer water level would be just covering the top surface, thinking that would keep the wood in it's present state of preservation, which seems fine.

Now I need to mount some timber onto this log to give us a dry jetty to launch a coracle or pram dinghy in wintertime too. I have some galvanised bolts from telegraph poles to mount this to the bog oak, but this timber will be partially awash for 9 months of the year. It will form a subbase for mounting some timber planking as the surface of the jetty. I was thinking that scaffold planks with stainless screws would do for the top surface, but what should I use for the subbase?

I have available some oak, plenty of alder, some elm, also some old pitch pine - will any of these be suitable without any treatment, which I am loath to do since this is a nice fresh pond.

mill the log you reclaimed from the deep and sell the lumber.

is it true bog oak???

the oak you poses should be fine for what goes in to the water and should lats 15 years without treatment. for something that will last 25-40 years i would pick greenheart or ekki

Alder is supposed to last indefinitely under water. Assuming its Alnus glutinosa. Its above the water where it will decay.

If you made an underwater structure of that with holes prefabricated to attach upper structure it will save full replacement and less disturbance next time.

We created a boardwalk over a wetland and used recycled plastic. It worked great.

Beechwood Trees and Landscapes Ltd

http://www.beechwoodtrees.co.uk

mill the log you reclaimed from the deep and sell the lumber.

 

is it true bog oak???

 

 

the oak you poses should be fine for what goes in to the water and should lats 15 years without treatment. for something that will last 25-40 years i would pick greenheart or ekki

Well I'm pretty sure it's oak the grain looks like it - it's definitely not the same as the willow trunks we got out of another pond. And it DID come out of a bog, so I'm guessing it is bog oak! It was about 5 feet below ground level in a mix of grey clay & peat.

Sadly I have no means of milling it - & the remaining piece has a branch stub 2/3 the way along it & a raggedy butt end that would need squaring off.

My missus is fancying it for a bench down by one pond, as long as I can shift it there with the tractor (soft ground being the problem).

I've just found a picture of the bit I used for the jetty, the crooked thumbstick on it is 5 ft long:-

Alder. Simple. If it's kept wet it's great, if it dries out then it aint.