On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 12:39:19 PM UTC-5, wrote:
I don't know about the shelf life but I do know about bonding metals
with epoxies. Aluminum can be especially hard to get a good bond on
because of the oxide coat. But this problem is fairly easily overcome.
Apply the epoxy to a clean oil and grease free surface. Then use a
small stainless wire brush to scrub the epoxy covered surface. Using
this method keeps oxygen away from the aluminum during the scrubbing
and the scrubbing action removes the super thin oxide coat. The
particles of aluminum oxide just get mixed into the epoxy. The epoxy
will wet the now oxide free aluminum surface. This process also works
when trying to solder aluminum. I have had to prove to a couple people
while they watched that this method works.
Eric

About ten years ago I repaired a broken solder joint on a small bracket, between two pieces of brass. This part is used every day and gets a fair amount of mechanical force applied. I used JBWeld but I was scrupulous about removing all the solder and getting down to bright clean metal on both pieces. So far it is holding. I also wired it in place until completely set.