I am usually disappointed when I turn to chemicals to try and ease the process of building or working on airplanes. Paint strippers? Forget them—they’re wimps these days. So I was not sure what to expect when a neighbor gave me a slightly used bottle of “PolyGone” as he left for his winter home and was cleaning out his shop fridge. I’d heard about it, but never used it, and having removed a lot of Pro-Seal (Polysulfide Sealant for those who don’t want to talk brand names), I was dubious as to how well this would work.
Well I had to remove a tank cover last week in order to replace a flop tube – so I took this out of the fridge to see what it would do. Holy smokes! It does what it says it will do! It turned twenty-year-old (and well-cured) sealant into a soft goo in just minutes, making it easy to take off the rest of the way with a little Scotchbrite. You still have to do a lot of work to get a cover plate off, since the PolyGone won’t creep into the frayed surface. But once you expose the sealant, bobbing this gelled stuff in place, letting it stand for ten minutes, and then coming back to wipe the mess off is well worth it.
Note that this batch was actually expired by about three months and it still worked great. Imagine what a fresh jar will do.
