Thermal compound setting time?

hi all,

I'm doing my first homebuild! luck of luck, my retention module bracket broke as I was trying to install the heatsink, now I have to wait a week to get another

I've already applied the thermal compound, what's more, I've never done this before and didn't know how much to use; I used a whole 3.5g tube! OK I didn't really know how much to put on, and the instructions don't really provide any comparison metric (like, "this tube should to about 15 CPUs" ); additionally, the heatsink instructions said to use "twice as much as normal" (again, without a comparison metric this didn't really mean much, but did make me think to use lots). I didn't find out till recently how much a tube is supposed to cover.

to be fair to myself, most of that didn't go onto the cpu, but various household objects that attempted to spread it with. I tried: butterknife, spoon, small peice of plastic, finally realizing a business card is the perfect applicator. Each new object consumed quite a bit of the stuff. Additionally, the heatsink was a bugger, and it didn't feel right having to apply so much force. I stopped multiple times, took the thing off inspected it and the board and reevaluated my procedure, checked the instructions, looked online for help, etc. Each time more thermal compound came off, and I felt obliged to reapply some.

Anyway, to the point, will the compound already on the processor be usable a week from now? Should I just go ahead and remove it and reapply fresh stuff? If I should remove it, how should I do this? Is alcohol a good idea? I read it was safe for electronics.

CPU is AMD Phenom II 720
HS is Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer

the thermal compound is tuniq tx-2, which came with the heatsink.

will alcohol do the trick of removing it?

EDIT:
Also: I've removed the old retention bracket already. How does that backplate fit in there, will it remain in place with the bracket off as long as I don't shift the mobo around? How do I know it is in place? I'm assuming it is what the bracket screws into, so if it wasn't there, the bracket would screw in anyway. Is this right?

that's why I'm asking if it has fallen away from the mother board since I removed the bracket.

I would have simply assumed you would think I would have the knowledge that teh backplate is on the _back_ of the motherboard, where I can't see it, and thus get the jist of my question.

this is my first build, but I'm not a complete idiot

EDIT:
also, there was a missing "'nt" on the "would" (should have been would'nt) in my previous post. I'm stating that if the backplate had fallen away or shifted, the retention module would'nt even be able to screw in at all. Is this correct?

HDT style cooler application suggestions:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index. [...] 0&Itemid=1

thank you for the very helpful post, jsc. After reading that article I'm thinking the bracket breaking was a blessing in disguise; had it not broke I'd have 10 times the proper amount of compound on the CPU, and it could of ran all over the place (possibly into the socket) once it started to heat up.

Also, I'm taking this time while waiting for replacements to lap my HS and CPU. I've started with the heatsink to get the feeling for it with something that isn't so fragile.