It funny, w8ye, I use 5 minute for most everything. I don't use the ace brand, but Devcon 5 minute. The short pot life is an issue, but I've goten to where I can time the project to not run into kick off problems. doing the dubro flat hinges, I limit myself to 5 slots maximum. That is enough to get the hinges in one aileron on a 4*60 size plane, Not the wing and aileron, but all of one part. I use the Devcon 5 minute for fuel proofing the engine and tank area, I mix up an ounce or more, then add alcohol to it to thin it out. Even though it is thin, you have to watch the time or it kicks off on you.

Brittle epoxy is a sign of to much hardner. Sticky epoxy could have used some more, but it will eventually harden OK, some times taking over a couple days if it is cold.

Ive used epoxy quite a bit over the last 20 years. I've used it for inlaying Opal in rings, making Opal doublets and then getting out of that business and back into RC, I've used a bunch of expoy in building.

Things I've learned. Buy small amonts. The little tubes cost more per OZ, but unless you are going to use up a tube in a couple months, it will save you greif vs buing the large containers. An unopened set of foil tubes will last for several years. I've still got a couple from when I had my store which closed in 99. They are the Epoxy 330 and Epoxy 220 brands and although they may be a bit slow in kicking off now, they are still good. Once opened though the life goes down hill quickly.

I've also found that the longer the epoxy pot life, the better bond and the stronger it is. When I was faceting gemstones, I ran out of 5 mintue epoxy, but the hardware store across the street had it. I ran over to pick up some and discoverd they had a 60 second epoxy. WOW that would increase my productivity by a bunch, or so I thought. I picked up a set and dopped up some stones to facet. What an expensive experment. The stuff did kick off in about 60 seconds. Great. However, the bond to the stones was awful. In addition to not bonding to the stones, the cured epoxy had the hardness of a pencil eraser. Very flexable. Not good at all for precession faceting

My stock Epoxy now is Devcon 5 minute and Devcon 30 minute. I've never had an issue with either when mixed right and given enough heat to kick off completely. If I am in a building frenzy, I get the larger bottles, but after a couple months I expect a bit of problems with slow cure and kick up the heat a bit.

One last thing, using Epoxy over CA, if the Ca hasn't had a few hours to finish off will sometimes cause the epoxy to not cure correctly. Just keep that in mind.

Don