I was suppose to test run my new plane yesterday. But after pumping gasoline into her for a couple of minutes it started running out all over the place. Needless to say I was extremely depressed. Had to tear the whole plane apart and start all over again. Turns out I had hit the tank while drilling the Nyrod holes for the choke. Poked a nice 1/4" hole in it. Here we are, new years weekend, a propriatary tank with a hole in it, things are not looking good. Here is one of the all time great tip. The hardware store guy told me to relax, they had a product called Permatex Plastic Weld ( http://www.permatex.com/products/pro...&item_no=84115 ) that would fix me up. Well I tried it and it seems to be working like a charm. It's definitely in my tool box permanently now. The stuff dries hard as the plastic tank itself and has proven to be a great little life saver until you can order a new. actually, I don't think I will need to replace it. Strong as before. The good side is the stuff sets up in about 5 minutes and reaches usable strength in four hours.

Hmmm sounds like a life saver - but how does it hold up with nitro methane fuel?

Our fuel is pretty hard on a lot of products. . . []

It says on the website it resists "fuels and solvents". That's pretty much inclusive of everything in our fuels. I bet it seals everything but the crack of dawn and the crack of ....well you know.

I would be nice to see if there is something that would actually works. But I'm from Missouri, so you have to Show-Me. In 10 years of flying if found the the best repair for a hole in a fuel tank is a new fuel tank. With the cost of fuel tanks being so low I just can't justify spending time trying to repair a tank and "hoping" it holds.

That's my 2¢ worth.

Ken

Well, you're probably okay with the lubricants and alcohol. But nitro methane is not regularly a solvent and is known to cause problems with plenty of materials. Until you have some time with the sealant submerged in the nitro I would withhold opinion. I believe I would test it first by putting a cured sample in a small container for a couple weeks.

I think there is no sence to repair fuel tanks. They are cheap, and it doesn't worth the risk of break it when flying and wet all the wood. This already happened to me... and the wood got soaped, and all the covering come off.

hubba bubba gum once chewed and put into a hole will cure solid once gas gets to it.

splais,
Thanks for the info.
As you said in your post, it's a special tank that fits the airplane. That makes it worth fixing. And the plastic weld might also be worthwhile to have in the flight box for at-the-field repairs. Sounds like it'd work on a hole as well as a screw expanded rubber plug would hold in the mouth of the tank.

BTW, my KYOSHO .46 size CAP 232 has a cowl that's some kind of white, mostly-rigid plastic that I figured was ABS or somesuch. It was the type plastic that you'd fix by soaking some of it's scrap in a bottle with just enough Acetone to melt the scrap into a paste.

The cowl developed a crack that went about 6 inches. I wasn't sure what would bond to that plastic. Then I noticed a sentence in one of the magazine ads for CA. It mentioned that the medium viscosity CA would bond ABS plastics. I got some and used it with a strip of glass cloth inside the crack. It seemed to slightly melt the plastic and bonded the glass into it.

sort of a spin off, but sorta on the same subject...........