I'm getting ready to refinish a large chunk of the stairs in my house. I
stripped the paint off (most of) it, to learn that it was made of some
fairly nice non-quartersawn oak, with spindles that could be either oak
or chestnut. Part of the repair work involved making spindle "spacers"
with Borg-bought oak, which I _think_ is red oak.

I'd like to refinish it, but oak gives me problems. Y'see, I created a
stain board with all the Minwax samples I had. And the stains rarely did
much to the oak strip: the grain changed, of course, but the color on
the lighter areas looked closer to magic-marker spills than anything
else. It's as if the raw oak had a built-in finish.

I had great results when I used mahogany on a recent project (at
www.briansiano.com), so maybe my expectations on oak are a bit skewed.
But, I would love to get a nice golden-amber or golden-mahogany-like
color to my oak.

From what I can tell, the general strategy for finishing oak involves
1) a stain
2) a seal, probably shellac
3) a glaze, mainly another player of stain
4) the final finish.

Thing is, I don't have the means to try a wide range of experimental
stain combinations. Can people point me to places where I can see the
end results of oak-staining efforts along with a description of the
process? Or, make suggestions as to stain combinations?