Modifications & upgrades
Plenty of docks on this lake were never drawn with a lift in mind. That is rarely a dead end — it usually means brackets, risers or a structural change rather than starting over. It does mean somebody has to look at it before anybody prices it.
Calls and texts both reach us.
This one causes more confusion than anything else we deal with, and getting it wrong means buying the wrong part.
Which one you need comes from the boat and how the lift sits, not from which is cheaper. If somebody has sold you one and it does not fit the way you expected, that is usually why.
Changing the boat rather than the brackets is a wider question, and the slip has a say in it before the lift does. Buying a bigger boat for an older boathouse →
Heavier boats
For double-stack 4 in. I-beams — eight inches of beam — there are two ways to go, and they suit different docks rather than being a good option and a cheap one.
One uses four 3×5 angle brackets with 10 in. bolts. The other uses eight 2×2 angle brackets, spreading the same load across more fixings.
Which is right depends on the beam, the boat and what the dock structure will take. We will tell you which yours wants when we see it.
What else gets changed
Where the dock has to be reinforced before it will carry a lift and a boat together. This is the survey-before-quote case more than any other — and it is structural work a lift needs, rather than dock building, which is not what we do.
For boats that want the load spread differently, or where a single bunk pair was never right for the hull in the first place.
Stepping from 1/4 in. to 5/16 in. for wake boats and heavier vessels. The time to do it is while the lift is already down.
PVC guides where a cable has been rubbing something it should not, which is usually why it wore out early.
Older-style pulleys swapped for the 3 in. four-ton yarding block — the same part that goes on a new install.
Fitted to length for the dock rather than sold by the piece, so it is quoted per job rather than off a list.
Lake Sinclair is a Georgia Power reservoir, and modifying a dock is dock work as far as they are concerned. Check with them before committing to anything structural — the requirements do change.
It depends on whether the boat is best lifted from the tubes or from the floor, which comes down to the boat and how the lift sits in the slip. They are genuinely different parts and are not interchangeable. Tell us the boat and the lift and we can usually say before coming out.
Usually, with the right approach. The dock has to carry the boat and the lift together, and where it will not as-built, reinforcement is often less work than people fear. What it does mean is that the survey has to happen before the quote — there is no honest way to price this one from a description.
There is no list price for this kind of work, because no two of these docks are the same. Describe what you have, or send a photo or two of the slip, and we can usually get close before we come out.
Generally yes. Flat-plate hoists are broadly similar across the brands and most bracket and bunk work is not brand-specific. If something is genuinely proprietary we will say so rather than making a part fit that should not.
Where we work
Lake Sinclair runs through three counties and we work all of them.
Call or text and talk to someone who actually does the work. No call center, no ticket number.
That number takes texts. Prefer to write? contact@phillipsmetalworksllc.com
