07-Dec-2017
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02-DEC-2005
Countersunk/Beveled Hole
Over the years, especially in the last few weeks via PM's/emails, I have been asked how I bed deck hardware with butyl tape. I officially apologize for being so slow with completed photo examples. I have been meaning to do one but just have not had the time to complete it.
Late one night I was in the barn staring at a cleat, and a small scrap of clear Lexan, hmmmm...... A drill, counter sink, some butyl tape, my camera and a few minutes later I had the pics I needed. Sorry it took so long it just needed to "click" the way I wanted to present it..
Here's how I bed with Bed-It Tape:
Step 1 - Countersink the deck holes slightly and then clean everything with Acetone or a similar fast evaporating solvent.
02-DEC-2005
Spyder Crazing Due To Lack of Beveled Edge
If you click this image and make it bigger you will see two spider cracks radiating out from the drilled hole in the deck. If this hole had been beveled/countersunk this would likely not have happened. The big money builders learned this trick a long time ago.
02-DEC-2005
5/8" Countersink Bit
So why on earth do I countersink or chamfer the deck side of the skins?
#1 It does a lot to prevent gelcoat crazing. By feathering the edge of the gelcoat, through the use of countersink bit, you are now a lot less likely to start a crack or craze mark in the gelcoat. Gelocat is an un-reinforced product and because of this its prone to cracking. Sharp right angle holes are a good place for these cracks to begin when you tighten the deck hardware and potentially flex the substrate. Beveling the edge of the hole or feathering it limits the ability of the crack to begin or start. This is why you often see holes drilled into plate glass that will have beveled or rounded edges too.
#2 By creating a bevel or countersunk recess in the surface of the deck the marine sealant or butyl tape has a cavity to fill. Without a bevel the hardware would compress the sealant to about 1/64th of an inch thick after the fasteners are tightened. Marine sealants do have some flexibility but not as much as you would guess. Follow me for a moment; Let's say you have a marine sealant that has a rating of 400% elongation before break on a 1/64" thick joint. Simple math shows you that 400% of 1/64" is only 1/16" of total allowable joint movement before a joint failure or leak starts. In the case of a stanchion base 1/16" is not much allowable movement before failure.
#3 By countersinking around the bolt holes you increase the maximum thickness of the sealant, at the bevel, to roughly a 3/32" depth at it's deepest point. Using the same math as above 3/32" X 400% gives you a total joint movement before failure of 3/8". If a mechanically fastened joint is moving 3/8" you have more problems than just a deck leak! So 1/16" allowable movement before failure at 400% without countersinking or 3/8" allowable movement at 400% before failure with countersinking. Even a small bevel will drastically increase max allowable movement before failure. Countersinking to a mere 1/16" depth will give you 1/4" total movement around the bolt before failure. You don't need a deep bevel to make a large difference between a failure and a seal.
#4 Countersinking is a no brainer and has many many benefits. For instance, you can install the fitting and tighten it down NOW with no waiting and you can seal deck hardware alone.
I am going to inject some strong opinion here so please move on to the next photo if you don't want to hear it.
I truly dislike the Don Casey "two step", "wait to tighten until cure and form a gasket" method of bedding deck hardware. Believe it or not, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I do however feel as if Don wrote that technique to guarantee boatyards future revenue. (grin & wink) This is NOT to say that it can't work though. It certainly can and does work. The problem with the two step method, using a marine sealant, is this;
Can the average DIY or yard employee get repeatable results that are reliable and consistent? The answer to that is very often no.
This is NOT about the idea of forming a layer of sealant between the fitting and deck being a bad idea, but rather about the EXECUTION and installation which can be very difficult to perfect and get repeatable results.
Think about it. If the sealant cures, to form a "gasket", and you then move the bolt while tightening it down on the "second step".... It can break the seal and leak... If you create a gasket too thick, and then can't get the mechanically fastened hardware tight enough against the deck, because of compression resistance, the hardware will move, and the sealant will eventually fail, so again, it can leak. If you don't let the material "kick" just right, which is very difficult to predict, it can all squeeze out and again it can leak.
Honestly, I mean no disrespect to Don Casey, he is a great guy and he writes excellent, excellent articles and books that have helped many thousands of boaters. Sadly that method is flawed in execution something that is very hard to predict. The two-step forma gasket method is one of the most difficult procedures to properly execute that I've read in any sailing/boating related book especially when applied to the average DIY attempting it.
On another note Don Casey has recently recommended using butyl tape. This was in a boat US article and he even weent so far as to link his Boat US article to the article you're currently reading.. Marvelous!!!
Sadly I have witnessed far too many cases of core rot due to the DIY & professional "two step" bedding procedures than I would have liked to. The big problem is that these sealants are moisture cure and you really have no way to know what state of cure they are in. The edges of a fitting may be at the right state but the middle of the fitting still wet & unchanged. Getting even cure distribution is extremely difficult.
With Bed-It Tape it is more "one step" because the consistency of the product is not changing and all your doing it tightening slowly, over time, to let it "displace" out from under the fitting.
So where did I lean the countersinking method? I learned this from a worker at Hinckley Yachts back in the 80's. Morris, Sabre and other top quality builders have known this secret for years but many of the big production builders are still either too cheap, or just don't know about it. This extra step takes all of about 30 seconds per deck fitting but apparently it's too much "extra" work for most builders.
OK I'm done with my rant...for now...
17-JUN-2004
Marine Sealant Failure
Here's a prime example of where the 1/16" of movement might make a difference. This is a stanchion base on a major production sailboat that was only two years old. The factory marine sealant, made by 3M, has failed and caused a void when the stainless plate flexed and bent.
This is another reason I prefer cast stainless or aluminum stanchion bases as they do not flex like plate stainless does. On top of the stanchion base bending this manufacturer also does not countersink the deck holes, which in this case resulted in wet deck core in under two years! Had the deck penetrations been properly countersunk there is a very high probability that this leak never would have occurred despite the cheesy quality of the stanchion base..
05-MAY-2004
Lifting Eye Backing Plate (outside the boat)
If by chance you're reading this and are still not convinced about countersinking, this is a lifting eye I installed in 2002 for an inflatable RIB dinghy. To do this install all I did was bevel the outer hull with a countersink bit, clean the surface with acetone and install the fitting with 3M 101 polysulfide, tightened it down ONCE and cleaned up the goop that squished out.
This fitting has been bone dry for nine years and resides below water, as in COMPLETELY SUBMERGED, when the dinghy is floating.
EDITED 10/22/2016: Still bone dry and not leaking a drop at 14 years, in a fully submerged application!
05-MAY-2004
Lifting Eye (inside the boat)
If you're still not convinced in the utility of countersinking the holes in your deck this photo was taken at year 8 of these pad eye's being installed and they still exhibited ZERO leaks and are still 100% bone dry.
While you probably could use butyl below water I don't and use marine sealants instead such as Sikaflex 291 or a Polysulfide. 3M 101 is no longer marketed so you are left with Boat life Life-Calk as the sole marine grade polysulfide. I never liked Life-Calk as much as 3M 101 but it's still better than devils glue, AKA 3M 5200.
This is EASY! Countersink, clean, tighten & clean up.... Done!
10-OCT-2006
Morris Yachts Countersinking !
Okay, okay still not convinced? Here's how the pro's do it. I took this photo at Morris Yachts of a brand new Morris during the deck hardware installation. These four holes are for the Dorade box on an M-36.
It is utterly reprehensible to me, in this day and age, that the production builders are so bent on saving 2¢ that they won't take the extra 30 seconds needed to properly install deck hardware. It took this Morris Yachts craftsman less than 30 seconds to bevel these holes, including installing the countersink bit into the drills chuck. 30 seconds!!!!!!
How many Pearson, Catalina, Hunter, Beneteau or other mass produced boats do we see or survey annually with wet decks? LOTS!!! How many Morris, Hinckley or other top builders using proper installation methods do we see with wet decks. Hardly any.. Hundreds of thousands of boats with wet core over 30 extra seconds per fitting, if that. Ridiculous really...
Rant over... (wink)
10-OCT-2006
A Close Up
Four properly countersunk deck penetrations on a brand new Morris.
02-DEC-2005
Also Beveled The Lexan
Okay, back on track.. For this illustration I also slightly beveled the piece of polycarbonate:
02-DEC-2005
Wrap Heads With Butyl
Step 2 - Wrap Bolt Heads - You'll want to rip off a small piece of butyl and knead it into a string then wrap the underside of the bolt or machine screw head.
02-DEC-2005
Press Into Deck Hardware
Step 3 - Press the through bolts into deck hardware with some good pressure.
First though make sure the hardware is clean, Acetone works well, but if Silicone was previously used you'll really want abrasives as Acetone won't touch dry silicone contamination.
Gelcoat silicone contamination is a whole other subject for a whole other day. Please avoid silicone except for certain tasks involving plastics that require its use.
02-DEC-2005
Flip Deck Hardware
Once the bolt heads are wrapped and pushed through flip the hardware over.
02-DEC-2005
Install Butyl Cones
Step 4 - Strip some more butyl tape and make another round string. Wrap the string around the bolt threads or shoulder. Knead and work & twist the cones into the threads of the bolt and shape them like a cone.
02-DEC-2005
Apply Butyl Tape To Hardware
Step 5 - Apply butyl tape to the rest of the base. It is perfectly ok to stretch and pull on the butyl while laying it on in order to make slightly thinner. For this project I used 1/2" wide by 1/16" thick gray Bed-It Butyl Tape. I make it available for purchase to readers if this site.
02-DEC-2005
Press Hardware Onto Deck
Step 6- In colder climates you may want to pre-heat the butyl to soften it some. After pre-heating, with heat gun on the warm setting, line up the bolts with the holes and press the hardware firmly onto the deck. I will often stand on the fitting, if possible, to partially displace and seat the butyl.
For illustrative purposes clear polycarbonate was used in place of a deck, another Compass Marine first, but don't worry one of the magazines will surely rip this idea off in no time. (Wink).
This photo allows you to see what actually happens when you bed with butyl.
02-DEC-2005
Apply Backing Plates & Tighten
Step 7 - Install the backing plates, in this case I just used fender washers, and begin to tighten. Please use suitable backing plates. These fender washers would not be the best choice in a stanchion or deck cleat as they are far to thin and a little on the small side diameter wise for a cored deck.
You will be best to have two people or a good way to keep the bolt from moving. Ideally you do not want the machine screw or bolt to spin, but if you absolutely have to, you can slightly soften the butyl with a q-tip and some mineral spirits and go for it.
*****IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT*****
Tighten a little bit at a time as the butyl will ooze out slowly because the consistency is quite thick by design. Tighten, let sit, tighten, let sit etc. etc.. When little to none squishes out & the bolt & nut become tight you can stop. This can take DAYS of small tightening events or weeks if you want to spread it out. It does not cure so do not rush it..
If you have a wood deck core DO NOT crush it by over tightening, better yet bore out some core and pot the hole with thickened epoxy. Unlike the "two step" method you are not waiting for the butyl to "cure" or change consistency but you do need to allow it to slowly displace out from under the fitting. This compression & squeezing forces the butyl into every nook and cranny and makes for an excellent seal..
Here I have taken pictures of the underside and the top side of the fitting.
14-FEB-2006
Use Proper Backing Plates!
As I mentioned in the last photo please use properly sized backing plates!
This is a prime example of DIY boat work gone bad. Ouch!! This stanchion base had NO sealant of any type installed. No polysulfide, no a polyurethane, no butyl and not even the dreaded silicone.
As a result of this unbelievably poor installation the core turned to mush. The thin fiberglass deck skins, combined with dinky little washers, could not withstand the forces applied on the 24" lever attached to the stanchion base, and ........ rip!
02-DEC-2005
Butyl Will Squeeze Out
After tightening, the excess butyl will squeeze out around the edges. The easiest way to clean it up is to pull or peel it away first. Use some of the excess butyl to make a small ball that you can then make quick stab & pull motions at the remaining oooze around the fitting. This quick stab & pull with a butyl ball in hand motion will get about 85-90% of the butyl cleaned up.
02-DEC-2005
Clean Up Butyl Ooze
Step 8 - Peel away excess ooze and clean with Meguiars cleaner wax, or a rag slightly dampened with mineral spirits. Do not saturate the rag with mineral spirits as it can creep under the fitting, just damp.
I find a ball of already "peeled" butyl works well at pulling away excess using a stab and pull motion. Stab the ball into the joint and pull away. The butyl will stick to the ball first and usually peel away from the joint. Alternatively you can use plastic razor blades or scrapers.
Contrary to popular myths about bedding all the Bed-It Tape does not squeeze out from between the surfaces even after the fitting is fully tight. This is the magic of Bed-It Tape, but it does take multiple small tightening events, ideally without letting the bolt spin, to get the vast majority of the butyl to squeeze out. If you do spin the bolt a little don't fret about it. Butyl does not harden of change consistency, like in the two step process with a marine sealant, and can take some spinning without causing a leak. Still the less spinning the better.
*****IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT*****
I know I may sound like a broken record but people keep emailing me about this issue and the ONLY reason is because they did not fully read or comprehend TIGHTEN SLOWLY..
DO NOT try and tighten the hardware to fully tight right away. Bed-It Tape relies on a slow compression to do it's job and seal properly. It takes time for it to compress, displace and move into every nook and cranny. The larger the deck fitting the MORE TIME it takes for this process to take place. Because of the density and formulation of Bed-It Tape it takes time for it to get displaced and squished out the edges of the fitting. When it stops you can stop making small tightening adjustments.
Bed-It Tape is pretty dense, and the perfect consistency for bedding marine deck hardware, but you must be patient when tightening the hardware. Remember you're not waiting for the butyl to change consistency, harden or cure so these tightening adjustments are not time constrained at all. If you can't get back to it for a month just pick up where you left off.
I sometimes take about two to three days of small tightening events to bed the hardware. Yes this is more labor intensive but the finished product, when done correctly, can still be bone dry beyond 30 years as it has been on over 80% of our own boat. Yes, over 80% of the deck hardware on our boat is still un-rebedded at 33 years old and still NOT leaking.
In colder weather butyl flows slower than in warm so just adjust the tightening adjustments based on temp and how fast it is displacing..
02-DEC-2005
View of Bed-It Tape O-Ring-/ Seal After Tightening
This is a view after tightening to full tight, and then removing the nut and washer. You can see how well it actually seals and also the o-ring seal of very thick butyl created by countersinking & butyl cone. The butyl o-ring created by countersinking the deck side is evidenced and can be seen by the darker colored ring of butyl around the bolt.
02-DEC-2005
What is Bed-It Tape?
This is Bed-It Tape. Bed-It Tape was developed after this article was originally written & published.
It all began when I started to get nasty emails saying the butyl tape folks purchased did not behave or perform as I had described in the article. Some boat owners had even purchased "butyl tape" that was water soluble. I went ahead and began ordering various butyl tapes, despite some only being sold is case lot quantities, and testing it.
I quickly discovered the butyl tapes of today, thanks to changes in EPA standards, were not what they had been in the 70's & early 80's. The products I tested were so horrible I was driven into developing a true marine quality product specifically for this purpose. Bed-It Tape is not a simple run of the mill butyl tape it's a hybrid elastomeric butyl based tape with properties specifically formulated for bedding deck hardware. Bed-It Tape is a Compass Marine Inc. product. This formulation is not licensed to any other companies.
Bed-It Tape is 1/16" thick by 1/2" wide X 50' long. It is specifically engineered & formulated for bedding marine deck hardware and best of all it is manufactured right here in the US supporting US jobs! Even the corrugated packaging is made here in the USA.
Many builders used to use butyl tapes, CS Yachts and many others did, but they all stopped because using butyl in a production environment is significantly more labor intensive, read slower, despite being a better mouse trap.
The benefits of Bed-It Tape are numerous:
#1 It never hardens and remains at the same thick consistency for well over 30 years.
#2 Because it never hardens it always remains flexible.
#3 It is multiples more flexible than a cured polyurethane.
#4 It sticks extremely well to clean gelcoat, fiberglass, plastics, aluminum, bronze, stainless, acrylic, polycarbonates etc. and has been specifically tested on these substrates.
#5 It's NOT a glue, and for through bolted deck hardware you do not need a glue.
#6 You can easily remove hardware sealed with Bed-It Tape in the future, without destroying your decks.
#7 Bed-It Tape is specifically formulated to resist cold flow or creep once properly tightened.
22-JAN-2008
The Original Butyl at 29 Years Old
As I mentioned a quality butyl tape is VERY, VERY flexible. This photo represents well over 1000% elongation of the original squished thickness and this pre-EPA butyl is still stretching and much of it has not yet failed.
You will also notice that it is still perfectly adhered to the deck and the cleat and never let go of either despite its very low 10-20 PSI bond strength, when compared to some polyurethanes gelcoat destroying 700 +/- PSI adhesion.
Butyl tape also cleans up easily. Remove the fitting and clean the surface with mineral spirits and a rag. That's it!
Because butyl can be softened with mineral spirits the one place I won't use it is on fuel fills or fuel vents. If you normally clean your decks with potent solvents, doubtful, then just be careful around the butyl bedded hardware.
22-JAN-2008
No Leaks After 29 Years! Bone Dry Core!!
Here is a look at the below deck view of that cleat pictured above.
This cleat had been bedded 29 years prior to this photo with butyl, and frustratingly, with no beveling of the holes. Despite the lack of countersinking/beveling it was used for 29 years covering over 50k+ nautical miles. Butyl is an exceptional sealant and the deck, even after 29 years and 50k+ miles, was still 100% bone dry, not delaminated and confirmed dry with a moisture meter and soundings.
You can see the pure white core and no signs of moisture damage.
22-JAN-2008
No Signs of Leaking at 29 Years!
Anyone who has been around boats for a long time knows what the back side of a deck looks like when the backing plates come off and the fitting has been leaking. Butyl tape, a deck cleat that sees tremendous loads, no countersinking and yet 29 years of service later and BONE DRY! No rust, no brown goo, no signs of any leakage.
I re-bedded much of our 2005 Catalina in 2006 and the vessel already had multiple deck fitting leaks. This was a BRAND NEW BOAT!!! Properly installed butyl tape, in my humble opinion, is a far superior deck sealant than any of the polysulfides or polyurethanes currently marketed.
Though with any of them, butyl, polysulfide or polyurethane they will all work very, very well IF properly installed. IF PROPERLY INSTALLED being the key words.
All deck hardware will eventually need re-bedding, no matter how good your sealant is. Why make things more difficult than they have to be in the future by using Satan's Glue (AKA 5200) that can have as much as a 700 PSI bond strength? Why do this when a product with just 10-20 PSI will achieve the same, and often better, results or outcomes.
It is good to keep in mind that 5200 can actually bond to the gelcoat more strongly than the gelcoat is bonded to the fiberglass substrate. Unnecessary bond strength? Absolutely! The Satan's Glue marketing mavens at 3M have probably driven millions of dollars in repair revenue for boat yards. They have actually spawned & supported an entire business dedicated to selling polyurethane/ 3M 5200 removal products! Again, this is absolutely ridiculous. This level of adhesion for THROUGH BOLTED deck hardware is 100% unnecessary.
12-MAR-2008
Genoa Track At 31 Years Old
Just one last bit of evidence as to why I prefer butyl tape for deck hardware over Devil's Glue or its extended family of misfit relatives.
EDIT - 2/19/2013: These genoa tracks are still bone dry having not yet been re-bedded since this boat left the factory in 1979!
This is the genoa track on our CS-36T as photographed at year 31. The track is still bedded with the original butyl tape she left the factory with in 1979. The track 31 years later was still BONE DRY, does not leak and has not leaked, ever, in 31 years and 50,000+ nautical miles. We run a 150 genoa most of the year, just as the previous owner did, so this track sees some heavy loads.
I've seen some 4 year old boats bedded with Devils Glue or its relatives dripping wet with rust stained bolts and wet core at year four and sometimes earlier.
Oh and this genoa track was installed without countersinking the holes. Just an aluminum genoa track bedded with butyl tape in 1979. Bevel the holes and it will probably go 70 years without a leak.. (wink)
02-DEC-2005
Removing the Old Hardware
Just a quick tip on removing hardware. A cordless impact driver can make short one person work at removing the nuts on the inside of the boat.
For stanchions and other hardware I often re-install them with hex head bolts rather than Phillips or slot headed screws. This allows me to tape a wrench to the deck using Gorilla Tape to keep it from moving then hit the inside with the impact driver, wrench or socket wrench. If you use the impact driver to re-install pleas DO NOT over do it. These tools are powerful and fast. I would advise against the use of one for re-installing the hardware until you know you are competent with it.
Impact drivers work via hundreds of rapid fire quick impacts or beats per minute sort of like a machine gun. These small, short, very fast beats or impacts will almost always break a nut free from one side without even using a wrench or screw driver on deck.
02-DEC-2005
The Impact Driver
This is one of my impact drivers, it's a cheap Ryobi and does the job. While I much prefer the quality & torque of a Li-ion powered Makita, Bosch, Hitachi or other premium brand I won't lose sleep if I hand this one off to Davey Jones and that kind of power is just not necessary here..
02-DEC-2005
Filling Holes With Screws
One last trick. We've all removed old hardware from a boat only to be left with a hole in the fiberglass. You can try to patch it with gelcoat, and may succeed, or you may make it worse if you're not well versed in gelcoat repair. Here's a quicker way to get back to boating.
Simply countersink the hole then use a truss head machine screw, or your preferred style, and butyl tape to cover & seal the hole. Truss head machine screws are available from most nut and bolt suppliers like Fastenal. Truss head machine screws have a much wider and lower profile head than a pan head machine screw. The truss head machine screws lend themselves well to plugging old holes with butyl tape..
First make a butyl cone around the head.
02-DEC-2005
Different Machine Screw Heads
Choose your weapon. I prefer the truss heads as I feel they seal better and will have less potential for leaking. They are also very low profile..
02-DEC-2005
Butyl Cone Wrap
Clean the surface and insert the butyl wrapped machine screw.
02-DEC-2005
Cone Fits Into Countersunk/Beveled Hole
You can see the cone fitting nicely into the beveled hole.
02-DEC-2005
After Tightening
Have one person hold the screw head with a screw driver to keep it from spinning then go below and install the nut and washer and tighten it down..
I will leave you with some general rules for bedding deck hardware:
#1 SEALANT ON DECK - Never bed or use sealant on the inside of the deck. If it leaks you WANT to know about it. By sealing the backing plate side or the inside of the boat you will force the water into the core, if not sealed. You can also cause any trapped water to become starved of oxygen. This can lead to pitting or crevice corrosion of the stainless bolts potentially leading to a catastrophic bolt failure. Only seal the deck side.
#2 TIGHTEN ONCE (tube type caulks) - If you use tube type sealant please don't listen to that old wives tale about letting sealant cure and then tightening it a second time. The second step in that process is waiting for the sealant to change consistency. With butyl, or a marine sealant, done with countersinking, there is no need to wait for a change in consistency. While in "theory" this sounds all warm and fuzzy, and can work if done well, the raw reality is this is often a disaster waiting to happen because it's rarely done well.. With butyl tape you can tighten in until it stops oozing, then you are done. This may take multiple small tightening events for the butyl to displace but there is no worry about it becoming hard...
With butyl countersink the deck hole and tighten it until it stops oozing. Be patient and don't try this in one step. With tube types there are just too many variables that can change the outcome with the "two step" method. It has perhaps been the cause of more deck leaks than if you were to use Swiss cheese to bed your fittings and I strongly suspect Swiss cheese might actually work better, if counter sunk. I have had my moisture meter & sounding hammer on lots of DIY and "professionally" done "tighten twice" boats and there is huge correlation to "tighten twice" and wet decks, huge. Of course butyl eliminates most of these issues...
#3 SILICONE USE - Avoid silicone where you can. There are only two situations where silicone should be used and that is for bedding acrylic dead lights or plastic fittings that are damaged by polysulfides or polyurethanes such as Beckson products. Dow 795 or similar should be used for acrylic ports/dead lights. Silicone contamination of gelcoat is very, very real. It is nearly impossible to clean and remove silicone from gelcoat and auto body products intended for metal are not safe generally for gelcoat. To effectively remove silicone from gelcoat requires judicious manual cleaning then wet sanding rinsing the paper frequently to clear it of silicone traces so you don't grind it deeper into the gelcoat. To test if the silicone is gone spray the area with a misting bottle of water. If the water beads it is not clean.
A customer owned a mid eighties Catalina where the previous owner had used silicone to bed the chain plates. Even after re-bedding they leaked every year for four years straight. He had even resorted to tenacious glues like 3M 5200, still it leaked. He finally called me to discuss it and we simply masked off the surrounding areas with 3M film tape and ground and sanded away the silicone contamination. The chain plates have been dry since, lesson learned the silicone must be COMPLETELY removed before any re-bedding. If you think you've cleaned dry silicone with Acetone, De-Bond or any of the other products folks claim have worked guess again. Over many years I have tried every chemical under the sun to remove silicone contamination and the only thing that works is a thorough manual cleaning and sanding. If you want to nearly ensure that the fitting will leak the next time you re-bed then using silicone is a good way to ensure it..
#4 CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN - When bedding hardware clean everything. The deck the hardware the bolts the heads of the bolts etc.. Bolts especially still have cutting oils and residue from machining on them so if you want a good seal clean, clean, clean....
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