Rebedding bow pulpit

[Jay]

Hi all,

I’m in the process of removing my bow pulpit to drill out and clean out the leaky holes, add epoxy etc. The pulpit had old rubber gaskets. I want to do something more water proof. What has anyone used for this job?  I was thinking life caulk or bed-it brand butyl. 

Thanks for any suggestions. 

Jay

[mark mills]

My go to for any bedding job is butyl tape.

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[Al Taylor]

Butyl for me too, but if you have rotted deck core you need to rotoroot it out and fill with thicken epoxy that redrill. 

On Sep 13, 2025, at 5:08 PM, Jay <wfpi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I’m in the process of removing my bow pulpit to drill out and clean out the leaky holes, add epoxy etc. The pulpit had old rubber gaskets. I want to do something more water proof. What has anyone used for this job?  I was thinking life caulk or bed-it brand butyl. 

Thanks for any suggestions. 

Jay

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[Jeffrey D]

I’m a butyl tape guy, too. One recommendation is that if you’re in a warm climate, it helps to keep the roll in a cooler with cold packs while you’re doing the job. It makes forming the stuff much less gooey. 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/pearson-boats/6E8ED93E-CD4D-453D-A523-8FCD8DB8665A%40gmail.com.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I prefer butyl too but one detail about the use of butyl tape...

It's really best suited to installations where the fastener is not spinning when you tighten it.  So a stanchion base where the screws are set in the holes and nuts are tightened from below.   But a stanchion base with a backing plate with threaded holes where the screws are turned to tighten from above might not be good with butyl.  This is because the turning screw will pull and twist the butyl around and disturb the distribution around the hole.   I installed my toe rail T-track with screws driven down into threaded holes and used polysulfyde rather than butyl.  My stanchion and pulpit bases have thru-holes where the screw is placed and held while a nut is tightened below.  On these I used butyl. 

You should also cut a chamfer at the top of the mounting hole in the deck to let the sealant (butyl or caulk) create an o-ring of sorts around the hole.  See some details here with threaded holes example:
http://dan.pfeiffer.net/boat/hdwrinst.htm

Dan Pfeiffer