...since all of my experiments failed, I went to "plan B"... Semi-Transparent stain.
It's a nice color, but it has too much blue in it... so I tried thinning it, tinting it, mixing it with white spray paint, etc, but I still didn't like it... The color was still "too rich"...
I was getting frustrated, and then a friend came by, so I took a break and we had a few beers...
As we talked about it, it dawned on me to spray a light coat of the white spray-paint as a
base-coat... Just a light dusting... I gave it about 5 minutes to "flash", and then put the stain on top of it. After a couple minutes, I wiped it down.
I love the effect! The white base creates the silver look after the stain goes on.
The pic below is a compilation of various shots of the same board, all at the same time, but at different angles and different lighting. {Sorry about the crude editing}
I dusted the whole stick with the white spray paint, gave it 5 minutes, and then used various concentrations of the stain on top.
6/1 means 6 parts thinner, one part stain.
2/1 means 2 parts thinner...
(X2) means two coats of 2/1 (which actually made it lighter)
0/1 means pure stain right out of the can.
I think I like the 2/1 formula... I think that's about as close as I'm gonna get.
And if I have to, I guess I can tint the final clear coat a little too.