I am going to be re mounting my bright work this week and was wondering if I should use butyl tape or life calk.
When I removed the companionway slides there was a very thin piece of plastic between each screw and the wood. I assume this is to let water drain. I lost a few of the "washers" I might just uses a thin plastic washer.
One more question when I am rebedding do I run what ever sealent I am using the full length of the rails (Vertical slides for the hatches and the top sliders ) or just at each hole.
Thanks
best way would be to overdrill each hole and refill with full epoxy. Then center drill through that and you've the beginning of a great solution. Topside, ream it a bit to hold some sealant; lifecalk is fine or almost anything at this point; it won't see sun. Then a dab of sealant and ideally screw all the way through. You shouldn't find wood core anywhere; if you do, drill larger and increase the size of the epoxy plug to forever and a day keep water away from core. But when I bought my ComPacs 15 years ago they assured me they used no wood core at that point, everything was microballons.
When I unscrewed my slides for cleaning and coating, I simply put a tiny dot of 3M-5200 slow set around each screw hole and reassembled.
Never a problem ... just like the factory put it together.
skip.