Sanded the lid and put on the first coat of "metallic" stain today. I'm trying to match the Royal Red Metallic paint on my truck while still leaving the wood grain visible, dunno if it will work or not. I mixed a custom color out of SamaN water-based stain colors Paprika and Raspberry, and then added gold "loose eye shadow" from Dollar Tree. It's basically ground mica. The truck looks much more orangey in the direct sunlight, and I'm hoping the stain will do the same thing (those crappy dealer-installed step bars are long gone):
This is the eye shadow I mixed with the stain, the bottles have a spill-proof top, so you have to clamp them in a vise to crack the bottom, then pry the bottom off:
Six bottles' worth:
First coat on the lid, it looks much redder without the flash:
The gold doesn't show up much under the flash, either:
Hopefully after more stain to darken it, then ten or so coats of clear, wetsanding and rubbing compound, it will come close to the truck. We'll see...