Kevin Sanders wrote;
"They are going to be through bolted"
How did you determine that Kevin? I assume you took them apart and saw that they were indeed through bolted.
When I was faced w the problem I was very worried I'd not be able to access the nuts under the cap rail. Finally I decided to just get on w it and I picked up my drill motor and ziped out the counter sunk straight slot fasteners. Never heard a nut drop. Never found any.
When it came time to reassemble I treated the fasteners like screws and zipped them right back in and they held well. No striped threads or any other undesirable things happened.
The bolts holding the stanchions on my Willard are bolts used as screws. And this is justified if there are enough threads to hold as well as if one used wood screws. But there are two layers of FG laminate that the fastener would/will need to go through. Since the FG is more like metal than wood machine screws seem the best choice of threaded fasteners to use.
The only posibility that they are nutted on the back side is very questionable in that the fasteners wouldn't be accessible ... how would one attach them?
I only have experience w my Willard and have read no recollectable accounts of stanchions being attached by any other method. Does anybody have experience that shows the stanchions attached in ant other way? I suspect that the industry probably universally attaches the stanchions just as Willard did. But what I know is limited to my experience w my Willard. And my assumptions are just assumptions. I'd like to hear from others that have taken out the fasteners.