First and foremost I have to say it goes on vastly easier than Captains or Epifanes... it is quite easy to recoat, (I just touch the area with wet/dry 1200 grit, and water wipe it down) and it is as they say, less brittle. (feels almost "hard bicycle saddle leather" "soft," not brittle)

Long term however I am not sure how well it works... I was too lazy to remove all the older varnish of dubious quality and grade on my brightwork, and I have used the Le Tonk sparingly... so about every 6 months or so some of the old stuff will flake up and I'll sand that off as well as my thin coat of Le Tonk, here and there, and reapply the Tonk onto the new bare wood.

Short term I love the look, and the application work is pretty easy. Where I have removed all old varnish and applied at least 4 coats of Le Tonk, it seems to be holding up fairly well... no signs of peeling. Where I've gone thin I notice the sun ages it quickly... 6 months or so, and I do a touch up.

What I should do would require a proper hauling and getting after the brightwork with a heat gun. I have not done that as I don't require a seasonal haul as the east coast folks. So I pay the price of "touch-up" with light sanding and new coats. The self leveling is very good.

Now all that said... about 6 weeks ago I pushed things a bit too far. I had to sand off the port toe rail and do a good job... as again I was still removing very old original varnish. (areas of very old varnish were lifting under the Tonk... and I could just peel it off) It was an odd weather day... sudden fog came in about 11:00 and then cleared out about 1:00.... great for the back breaking sanding work... in the cool air of the fog... so sand I did. Well I got ahead of myself and started to apply the Le Tonk after the fog lifted. (stupid stupid stupid... the humidity was still in the air....) I finished the main job and decided to wet wipe down some other areas that were just fine and add another coat to those already gleaming areas of brightwork... bow sprit, back rail... some around the companionway... just here and there, to build up the thickness. And finished about 4:30. Fog started coming in about a half hour later... and stayed overnight. The Tonk never cured.

I came back to the boat the next morning, hoping I got away with it, as Tonk will handle a somewhat wide range of humidity... but not that nearly 100% humidity it sat in overnight. Everything I had done sat there looking milky white. Soft, a bit sticky, and milky white.... like orange peal. ohhhh!

The bow sprit was the hardest to take as it is a bunch of small boards that are hard to get to. Well the stuff is so soft I can't sand it... it clogs the paper. I have been scraping it off... I can almost do it with a fingernail... it is kind of like removing thick callouses. (for lack of a better description)

Beneath the white milky stuff is still shiny brightwork... but I scratch it up a bit while scraping. Of course the best solution is to haul and go to a yard, and get a heat gun... But instead I have been painstakingly scraping and feathering... until I get the time and money to do a proper overall paint job. Right now it just looks bad... which is sad, as only the one port toe rail (faces the southern sun) really needed work... before.

So long term... I don't know... does it last a year with six good coats... hard to say... but it is easy to touch up and reapply, it does self level well; it looks good... but don't apply it just before heavy fog. I'll probably finish the job later in the spring after the days are a bit longer and dryer... Maybe I'll haul next year... and paint the whole damn boat... yeah... maybe.