I’ve found my finishing problem: I’m building things out of pine.
Traditional stain, gel stain, urethane, tung oil, danish oil…on oak, cherry or maple many of these look fine. No matter what I put on pine, it comes out looking like a septic prolapse.
Thanks for the book recommendation!
It’s fairly expensive, but it turns out that there are several copies of both first and second edition available through my local library.