ca can be from a few seconds to about 5 minutes. it depends on conditions. if you wick it into tight fitting gap between two sheets of bals it is very fast but if you try to glue a fuel tube to a piece of balsa it may take a few minutes. thier is a thing known as ca kicker which will make the ca glue set up almost instantly. I would not buy large bottles of epoxy. after you break the seal on the epoxy it will start to go bad. the stuff I use usually never lasts more then a year and if it is kept in a hot area then the epoxy goes bad and a quicker rate. Wood glue is by far the best thing to use for building a model because it has a good amount of time before it sets so you can positions parts correctly and it binds into the wood extremely strong. ca vapors can be nasty and I hate when it gets on clothes or hands. the clothes and skin instantly harden, the clothes are ruined and the glue has to be worn off the skin. epoxy takes an extended period of time to be cleaned off your hands. usually you have to wait for it to finish its reactions before its residues become easy to remove from the hands. Epoxy has to be mixed very well or it takes forever to harden