Yesterday I applied a concoction of 3 stains: 2 Varathane and one Zar, to get the color I needed. My typical procedure is to stain one day, apply sealer the next.
Well...today I sealed the wood with Enduro, applied their clear pore filler, sanded that a tiny bit, and then I used my vacuum with the brush attachment to remove the sanding dust. DAMN! Something was wrong...very wrong. Little brown puddles began forming on the surface of the wood. I took off the vac brush and dragged the bare nozzle across the wood; Yikes! Even more stain was making it's way out of the wood.
I figured it wouldn't be the smartest move on my part to ignore this, so I sanded off the sanding sealer, most of the stain, and will re-stain and wait for god knows long this time, before it's sufficiently dry.
I didn't beat flat rate today...but I learned a valuable lesson.
In the future, I'm betting a reliable test to check for PROPERLY dried stain would be to put the vacuum to the wood.
Dave