Living up in Canada, going the old route of Potassium DiChromate is not really an option as i don't have access to any and bringing it in without a license can be trouble.

So I am stuck with going with a stain of some sort. In the past I have run into issues where there has been a spot or two where glue got into the wood and blocks the gel stain from working. In other cases, I have had streaks where I can only assume some other contamination has taken.

I have never tried staining with Aniline water stains on a project like this. I have an Earlex 5000 HVLP that I can spray it on with. I know that I will need to pre-spray the whole bed to raise the grain and sand before staining.

Are there other solutions to this problem that I have not considered? My access to products are pretty limited to Lee Valley and local bigbox stores.

thanks

Matt.