Le Tonkinois
- Thread starter Mac G
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone who enjoys boating.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
ScottC
Guru
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2019
- Messages
- 1,651
- Location
- SWEDEN
- Vessel Name
- ABsolutely FABulous
- Vessel Make
- Greenline 33 Hybrid (2010)
I live in a condo in Sweden that was built in 2001. 75% of the outside, including all door and window frames are of North American Oak. Beautiful golden yellow wood. At completion, per the architect's recommendation, it was finished with Le Tonkinois varnish. Our condo sits exactly at the edge of the sea and gets brutal storm winds and salt spray, along with long hours of sun in the summer months. It's very much like living on a boat. I have to wash salt spray off the windows!
Our condo association struggled from 2001 to 2012 with maintenance of this oak using the Le Tonkinois and procedures recommended by the architect. In 2012, we finally gave up and went to something that's not really a varnish. Our new solution is like a stain that soaks into the wood. It leaves a very dull finish, but still with a very nice oak color. It looks fine on a house, but I don't think it would look very good on a boat.
Why did we give up on Le Tonkinois? It was simply too much maintenance for not enough protection. It failed within 1-2 years, where splits allowed water to get in and turn the wood black underneath. Then ALL the layers of varnish had to be sanded off to remedy this. And this happened even when we mixed in the UV protection they recommended.
Perhaps this is normal varnish performance (?) In any event, we did not find it good enough for a large building.
Le Tonk would probably be ok on a boat if you were prepared to sand off the damaged layer(s) every year and brush on new.
Our condo association struggled from 2001 to 2012 with maintenance of this oak using the Le Tonkinois and procedures recommended by the architect. In 2012, we finally gave up and went to something that's not really a varnish. Our new solution is like a stain that soaks into the wood. It leaves a very dull finish, but still with a very nice oak color. It looks fine on a house, but I don't think it would look very good on a boat.
Why did we give up on Le Tonkinois? It was simply too much maintenance for not enough protection. It failed within 1-2 years, where splits allowed water to get in and turn the wood black underneath. Then ALL the layers of varnish had to be sanded off to remedy this. And this happened even when we mixed in the UV protection they recommended.
Perhaps this is normal varnish performance (?) In any event, we did not find it good enough for a large building.
Le Tonk would probably be ok on a boat if you were prepared to sand off the damaged layer(s) every year and brush on new.
sean9c
Guru
Leo used it on Tally Ho 
I've tried it. It is a traditional long oil varnish very similar to the others. I've recently been using Awlspar M3131, same class of product but has an advantage: if you recoat within 48 hours, no sanding is needed for adhesion. In that it is similar to the Epifanes Woodfinish product. Allows you to build film thickness without sanding half of each coat off each time. It can also be recoated in 3-4 hours under good conditions, so it is possible to do 3 coats in a long day. I put on 6 - 9 coats, now the grain is filled and you have some film thickness, but it is getting a bit lumpy and dusty. Then wait 3 days (the downside perhaps of the slow cure), sand smooth, and apply an additional one or two finish coats. It seems to flatten better than Epifanes (I apply with a roller everywhere I can using a 1" diameter, 1 or 2" wide dense foam roller), without needing thinning. I've always had to thin Epifanes just a bit to get it to behave.
Compared to Epifanes High Gloss (or the LT product) those things are big time savers. With Epifanes, one coat a day, sand between, so to build the same film thickness takes 4+ times the number of days. The Epifanes Woodfinish, no sanding, but still one coat a day.
Compared to Epifanes High Gloss (or the LT product) those things are big time savers. With Epifanes, one coat a day, sand between, so to build the same film thickness takes 4+ times the number of days. The Epifanes Woodfinish, no sanding, but still one coat a day.
