aaahh yes.  This bit of business marks our first foray into actually epoxying something with a catalyzed epoxy resin stuff thingy.  goop.  Anyway, everyone makes a big poo about how the fiberglass part sucks, so we were prepared for the worst.  the first thing we do here is epoxy on the gas door strut stiffener.  it’s a piece of aluminum that gets epoxied and riveted to the inside of the inner shell of the doors.  That picture of me below standing on something is the gentle massaging of parts that need to fit a little better.  anyway, we mixed up some stuff, stuck it on there, and that was that.  hooray!  no biggie.  what’s all the fuss about?  So thinking we had all this epoxy stuff dialed in and handled, we boldly went forth to epoxy the door halves together.  about midway through the process, things started spiraling out of control.  Bethany says “hey, the goo is smoking.  is it supposed to do that?”  then I say, “yea, I think that’s normal.”  then Bethany says “Ouch! the cup with the epoxy in it is hot!  is that alright?”  anyway, it suffices to say that no, everything wasn’t alright.  somehow we had sped up the catalyst or something and the thing almost got away from us.  the epoxy started getting chunky, and it was sticking to the door halves.  I was ready to give up and buy new door shells.  I really thought we had blown it.  Bethany didn’t give up though, and she wouldn’t let me give up either.  in the end, we had to scrape off all the epoxy we had spread around the mating surfaces, and scrub it clean again with acetone.  Then we mixed a new batch of epoxy, and we worked fast this time, spread the epoxy on the mating surface, clecoed the halves together, then onto the fuselage.  we pretty much used every clamp and weight we could muster.  It all turned out ok in the end though.  I was pretty shaken up about the whole smoking epoxy thing, so I called fellow builder (and resin smart guy) John G., and he clued me into a couple small but important details about working with epoxy.  THANKS JOHN!  and so armed with my new information and another 12 clamps that I bought at the hardware store, we tackled the other door, and everything went much smoother.  WOOHOO!