Sorry for all the questions recently, but since I've been laid off I've been in the garage building almost constantly.
I prefer water-based stains. I know there is much debate over whether oil-based are better, but that's not the point here.
When I do use oil bases my workpiece remains relatively smooth. However, as most know, using water tends to raise the grain making the work rough feeling.
I recently finished some pine with a water based stain, and then moved on to poly before really inspecting it. After my first coat of poly I noticed that the grain was particularly rough around the knots in the wood. Now my stain looks uneven/rough in those areas. Two questions:
1) I'm assuming there's nothing that can be done about it know as there's dry poly on it.
2) I use minwax water-based stains, which all say not to sand between coats of finish. How am I to get my wood back to smooth if I can't sand until after my first coat of poly (and that's not really a sanding at all)?