Here's a picture of the stainless test piece bonded to the cut out section....the area on the left is where I tried a 5 minute epoxy....it held in that one little place where you can see a little piece of the SMC stuck to it....the rest just broke away..it did stick to the SMC piece fairly well and I didn't do anything but clean the stainless with acetone....no bead blast....I just bonded it last night and the 3M epoxy has a 7 day full cure time. I pulled on it a little and it didn't budge.....so I'm hoping in 7 days it will be permanently bonded....
Sorry to hijack.....I'll start another thread when I get going fully on this project....just thought there might be some interest....?