When people need flush corner joints (say, dovetails), I usually see them glue the piece up, sand or plane the joint flush, and then apply stain to the whole thing. That won't work for me, because I want each piece to have a different stain.
I've come up with a few ideas:
- Stain the pieces separately before they're glued up, hoping that I don't have to sand through the whole stain to get the joints flush.
- Glue the pieces unstained and stain each piece selectively with masking tape, hoping that the stain doesn't seep under the tape and through to the other piece.
- Assemble the piece without gluing it, sand the joints flush, disassemble it and stain the pieces separately, and glue it all back up, hoping that all the pieces fit together exactly as before.
All three options seem pretty unlikely to work. Is there a trick to this, or am I going to have to redesign the project to avoid the issue?
I'm using oak and Minwax oil-based penetrating stain, but I'm also interested in solutions for other wood and stain combinations.