On Mon, 31 May 2004 15:34:49 -0400, "Doug Dotson"
wrote:

I am quickly coming to the point of rebedding the deck fittings
on my boat. A brief history: wood decks off, screw holes filled,
core voids filled, now doing final sanding. I asked someone
(a boat yard professional) whether to rebed the fitting on the raw glass
or wait until after painting and bed them on top of the paint. He
said it is best to bed in the raw glass (gelcoat actually), then mask
them off and paint around them. That way if there is a paint failure
I won't have to deal with rebedding them again. Also, much easier to
remove them, sand under then and rebed them than have them all out
and having to fill them temporarily against the WX while painting is
going on.

The real question is....how cheap is the paint and/or the paint job?

If you're using house paint, and will have to re-do it in a few years
'cause it's starting to look a little crappy....stick the fittings on
first.

If you're likely to break, replace, or refurbish the fittings prior to
an expectation of re-painting, put the paint down first.

If you are holding the old fitting in your hand, and you took it off
the boat with the expectation of putting it back on....and if it were
to taken off intentionally, sometime in the future...even if not by
you, and were to be re-used; don't use 5200.

If it were to come off in the future, for maintenance or whim, and
does not outweight the damamge and aggravation in it's removal; use
5200.

Otherwize...use something else.

There are exceptions to these rules of thumb.