Forget Gel-stains for THIS application anyway...

Call around to find ZAR wood stains. You rarely see this brand in "The Boxes". ACE has it in their warehousing, as do other buying-groups. We've got it in the ACE store where I'm at.

ZAR is a very highly-pigmented "regular" stain, NOT a gel stain. You can put a blob of stain on a stir-stik, and turn it upside-down, and very little will drip off. "Normal" stains are like coffee...they'll drip all over.

Once you've got this stain, carefully scuff-sand with 100-grit paper WITH the grain. This will give the surface some "tooth" for the stain to hold.

The beauty of the ZAR stain is that it's very opaque. You can almost treat it like paint! Since you're at Light Oak, going darker is easy. You can wipe it as hazy or opaque as you desire. Check out the link I posted below...

Now the tricky part...getting the protective coat(s) on!
It'll be tedious, but brushing on 2 or 3 coats of Poly is a good way to go. You could check into having someone spray final coats on.
A wipe-on Poly is an acceptable choice too.

>>> Once finish-coats are on, put it away for a couple weeks while finish hardens!!

Faron

Here is a link that might be useful: ZAR wood stains...