Original: Campgems
. . . . . 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 . . . . .