[davepl]

Many beautiful results above! Thanks for the tips so far!

Something a buddy mentioned that I don't see above I'll pass along too - he suggested three coats of clear before any serious sanding, because if you sand through the clear and hit your stain you'll be sad.

Also, holy cow, stir thoroughly. The test patches in the store were red (I'm using Golden Mahogany) but once well shaken they're much darker brown. I think the dark pigments must have been stuck at the bottom. Good news is I prefer the "real" color and it sort of matches the side trim.

One big question: I'm using semi-gloss; if I sand and buff it out on my last coat, won't that turn it into a full gloss, even though the product is semi-gloss?