Bedding Deck Hardware With Bed-It Butyl Tape

Jan 22, 2008
423
Catalina 30 Mandeville, La.
Guys,

I will be away on business from Jan 28th through about April 25th. During that time I will not be able to ship butyl tape.

I will resume shipping the butyl when I get back. The tape I sell is not readily available but there are some products out there that can work OK. If you need it fast you might need to buy another type of butyl tape from another an on-line source. As always use gray and not black!!
Thanks for this post. I have a '93 23.5 and will be resealing all of the deck hardware soon. The reason I bolded the text above is that I have miles of black butyl tape. Is there something different with the gray besides color?
 
Feb 6, 1998
11,667
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
Thanks for this post. I have a '93 23.5 and will be resealing all of the deck hardware soon. The reason I bolded the text above is that I have miles of black butyl tape. Is there something different with the gray besides color?
Black is very, very messy. There are also different grades of butyl and some are messier than others. Some are only intended for sealing RV roofing and have a high solvent content and thus tend to "bleed" when heated in the sun which black does more so than gray. The higher quality taped bleed less and make less mess in the sun.
 
Jan 22, 2008
423
Catalina 30 Mandeville, La.
Black is very, very messy. There are also different grades of butyl and some are messier than others. Some are only intended for sealing RV roofing and have a high solvent content and thus tend to "bleed" when heated in the sun which black does more so than gray. The higher quality taped bleed less and make less mess in the sun.
Thanks. The black tape I have is for sealing outdoor coaxial connectors. I've never seen it bleed or run but is usually sealed under tape. I may try a bit somewhere to test.
 
Feb 6, 1998
11,667
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
Thanks. The black tape I have is for sealing outdoor coaxial connectors. I've never seen it bleed or run but is usually sealed under tape. I may try a bit somewhere to test.
I suspect what you may have is a self amalgamating tape and is not the same as a butyl tape. Butyl tape has wax paper between the layers, is very, very sticky, and is not like electrical tape on a roll that you stretch and wrap to make it seal to itself...
 

Clark

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Jun 30, 2004
886
Hunter 280 Lake Guntersville, AL
OK, help out a dummy. I went to the link and it shows several items. Exactly which is the appropriate tape? The "Grey Butyl Tape" or one of the "Tacky Tape" items?
 
Feb 6, 1998
11,667
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
OK, help out a dummy. I went to the link and it shows several items. Exactly which is the appropriate tape? The "Grey Butyl Tape" or one of the "Tacky Tape" items?
Which link?

Here's the butyl tape used in the article: Bed-It Butyl Tape (LINK)

It comes in 50' rolls 1/16" thick by 1/2" wide in gray..
 

Clark

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Jun 30, 2004
886
Hunter 280 Lake Guntersville, AL
Thanks MS. I wound up going to the Compass site and

ordering the Bed-It.
 
Mar 17, 2011
5
Catalina 27 Alamitos Bay
Any tips on how to handle and clean up butyl tape? After working it into worms to work around bolts more and more seems to get stuck to my fingers making it harder and harder to handle. Also getting it out from under my nails is really tough. I am using some black tape so the mess looks worse than the gray.
 
Jan 3, 2009
821
Marine Trader 34 Where Ever I am
We use disposable vinyl gloves when working with butyl tape or any caulking. I know it won't help now, but maybe next time. Chuck
 

JMM

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Feb 9, 2011
34
Hughes H40 Semiahmoo,WA
Just finished my first bedding project using the Bed-It Tape ( purchased from Maine Sails recommended link - Thanks). I was installing new dinghy davits and used this method to bed the feet. Being the first time using it it took me much longer so I received multiple complaints from my "helpers" that the project was now seriously cutting into beer time ;). Kidding aside, I found Bed-It Tape pretty easy to work with and not overly tacky. Cleanup was pretty easy.

How does the Bed-It tape work for re bedding chain plates that go through the deck?

Would you recommend using Bed-It tape to bed nicro vent rings (plastic)? I am about to replace some older style nicro vents with the new style that uses a newer base -- but uses the same some mounting hole.

Thanks, Jim
 
Apr 8, 2010
1,606
Frers 33 41426 Westport, CT
Just rebed my stanchions with some of Maine's bed-it tape today. I ordered it on Wed, and had it at my door Friday, so fantastic service (although he did tell me I got lucky as most orders get shipped on Wednesdays, regardless of when they are ordered).

rebedding wasn't actually that difficult, or time consuming, except that the previous owner had sealed over the outside of the stanchion base with silicone instead of properly rebedding (I can't complain, it's really the one and only maintenance thing that was done wrong with the boat)

pictures of my butyl bedding project can be found here.
http://sailingit.com/blog/boat-projects/rebedding-stanchions-with-butyl
 
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Feb 6, 1998
11,667
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
Just rebed my stanchions with some of Maine's butyl today. I ordered it on Wed, and had it at my door Friday, so fantastic service (although he did tell me I got lucky as most orders get shipped on Wednesdays, regardless of when they are ordered).

rebedding wasn't actually that difficult, or time consuming, except that the previous owner had sealed over the outside of the stanchion base with silicone instead of properly rebedding (I can't complain, it's really the one and only maintenance thing that was done wrong with the boat)

pictures of my butyl bedding project can be found here.
http://sailingit.com/blog/boat-projects/rebedding-stanchions-with-butyl
Actually I ship mon-fri and most orders go out the morning after I received it. Yours went out same day because I was home ordering stock and doing some invoicing, and because you emailed and asked:D.. Normally it would have gone out thurs morning...


Glad you liked it!
 
Apr 8, 2010
1,606
Frers 33 41426 Westport, CT
Actually I ship mon-fri and most orders go out the morning after I received it. Yours went out same day because I was home ordering stock and doing some invoicing, and because you emailed and asked:D.. Normally it would have gone out thurs morning...


Glad you liked it!
Sorry bout' that, guess I mis understood what you meant about being in the office on Wed:) Still great service... btw, did you see my note about the Dow 795?

Also, the previous poster that you questioned his claim about useing butyl for outdoor antenna connectors, most professional installers do in fact use butyl tape (albeit the black kind that would be an absolute nightmare on a boat) for that purpose. Some companies will use the far less weatherproof self amalgamating tape because it is less messy, some don't even realize the difference. I previously bought 4' wide rolls the size that you shipped by the case when I owned my wireless company, absolutly weatherproof, absolutly a mess to work with... 3M called it mastic tape, but the fine print said it was butyl tape...
 
Sep 2, 2011
1,041
Hunter 27 Cherubini Alum Creek State Park
"...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..."



Thanks for this "Sticky" Maine Sail. I order your butyl tape, and am now in the process of removing hardware to re-bed.

On my Catalina 22, the gudgeons and bilge pump thru-hull were previously bedded with silicone. I removed it all, and per your advice, wet sanded the gel coat where the fittings were, then rinsed with acetone. I took all of the fasteners and soaked them for a couple of hours in mineral spirits, then used a wire brush to clean the remaining visible silicone off.

Paying close attention to your warnings about silicone residue, I'm wondering what else I need to do to the fasteners, in particular the bolts, to ensure that ALL the nasty stuff is removed. It seems pretty impractical to wet sand the thread spirals.

Also, do I need to use acetone after the MS to remove its residue?
 
Apr 8, 2010
1,606
Frers 33 41426 Westport, CT
Forrest15112 said:
I actually did use the black butyl tape to seal a couple of fairleads on deck as an experiment after reading this. It sat the entire summer in the south La. heat and never oozed or ran. I was pretty sure it wouldn't run because I have never seen it run or ooze on cable fittings even after 10 years. I wasn't so sure about it leaving black streaks from rain, but it didn't. I don't understand the absolute nightmare comment because it behaved just like the pic's in this thread of the gray butyl. I recently resealed all of the deck hinges and have been quite pleased with the results. Clean up consisted of an exacto knife and dabbing a ball of butyl as MS described. I used butyl tape that comes with cable sealing kits from Andrew/Commscope. It's on wax paper rolls about 3 inches wide. It was dream to use - no nightmares at all.
You got one of the few that done run then. I have used a bunch of the various black tapes on antenna connections before and found that most do run, then again you could have used the self amalgamating tape (often confused, and frequently supplied with antennas), that doesn't run, but doesn't have the same properties as buytl that make it so ideal.
 
Jan 3, 2009
821
Marine Trader 34 Where Ever I am
We used the black to bed our new ports, see here , and we are in the south Florida sun all the time. No running from any of the ports. The butyl tape was supplied by New Found metals when we bought the ports. Chuck
 
Jul 8, 2011
704
Catalina 30 Sidney B.C.
After reading mosts of the posts on line on different forums and also being in the RV industry I am having a hard time understanding the (using in the real world) properties of butyl tape for marine as opposed to marine butyl.
After reading most posts I am wondering whether most people are confusing RV PUTTY tape with the better RV BUTYL tape.
I have been using RV butyl tape for an awful long time and even on my own rv's and find no degredation in its qualities .Even after removing broken windows for replacement after time the butyl is still sticky and plyable and doing a good job .
Can anyone help explain this big difference to me ?
 
Jan 8, 2011
17
1981 Catalina 30 TRBS #2154 Northeast MD
Sent email to your address on link-any tape available? Interested in 2 rolls.

C