[skyfireblaze]

Thanks for the help Bean.

It's red oak.

I could use the polyshade, but I'd rather do the staining and poly in two steps. I've tried to read up quite a bit on this and just about everything I've come across (and everyone I've talked to) says that while the all-in-one approach is okay, you can get much better results doing the staining and finishing in two separate steps.

Also, and perhaps more importantly at least to myself, I found that when I was testing out the bombay mahogany polyshade stuff, it collected in the corners causing a really dark "gooping" effect. Maybe it had to do with how I was applying it, but that's what I saw. With the stain, after wiping it off you're just left with the colored wood.

And yeah, you're right about the poly changing the appearance of the final stained/finished piece, but I believe it usually just darkens it up. Sometimes it'll yellow a bit, right? But I can't see how it'd bring out any reds ...

I'll have to roughen up one of my test pieces and stain it to see how different it turns out. I'll also put some poly on one of the other pieces to see what effect it'll have on what I've got so far.

Thanks again ...