How Much Butyl Tape?

[Azul]

Compass Marine sells good quality butyl tape in 50 foot rolls. I only have one leak around a life line stanchion (not surprisingly the one everyone grabs as they enter the cockpit) and I am thinking about rebedding all of the deck hardware before I repaint the headliner sometime soon. But the PO may have used butyl already as the boat is very dry, I will find out when I do the one stanchion. It is a flat $11.50 shipping rate for up to six rolls, and the rolls are $15.85 each. Roughly how much tape will it take to rebed the deck hardware of a typical 34 foot boat, with or without the standing rigging? How much tape is good to have around in general? I suppose the stuff lasts for a long time without being used, but perhaps it sticks to itself in the heat and buying too much it will go to waste?

Warning, if you read this website and the excellent description of how to do the job you won't be able to sleep until you rebed your deck hardware, yikes! Even three year old boats can have problems!
Need Butyl Tape ?? Photo Gallery by Compass Marine at pbase.com

BTW, does anyone have a recommendation on paint to use for a headliner? I suppose an epoxy product like WestCoat is best, but I think it may be hard to apply on an inverted or vertical surface.

[Stu Jackson]

I bought two rolls, plan to use them for stanchions and chainplates on our C34.

[Triton318]

I purchased a roll from him and have used it to bed some deck fittings after a refit. Great stuff! A bit labor intensive, but worth the time. I have no doubt it will work as good, or better than, polysulfide. I'll never use polysulfide again to bed deck hardware! I kept the roll on the boat over the summer in some pretty extreme heat, and it did fine.