Yeah, AKC has some cool stuff and their micarta is probably the real stuff, but I like to make my own things wherever possible...

Tell your brother to get onto swordforum.com - it is worth a look and has some great knowledge there!!

The workable time varies a lot depending on heat and amount of catalyst used. I have had it get thick and gluggy (unable to be spread) within about a half an hour, but in the cool with little catalyst it can be workable for a few hours.

The sooner you clamp the better - as that way the resin will still be at its moistest stage and you can really force those air bubbles out by crushing the cloth down as hard as possible. However, there would be some time to play around if you wish, just my advice would be do it quickly and set up the clamp as quick as you can.

As for casting foreign objects, that is because the other thing may have a tendency to trap air bubbles beside it - this is avoided in two ways.
1. The cloth isn't just embedded - it is soaked, so there is no room for air bubbles. Last I looked it was hard to soak a beetle or a coin.
2. The crushing force should push all air bubbles out later. This really should be about as hard as you can get it. I know people who use 12 tonne presses to do this. I don't know what tonnage I can get with a clamp, but I would guess that I am not too far off that number...

I hope that this helps!

I will also post a summary of these answers on the actual WIP thread.

Cam