Hi, I'm staining the interior of a fixed (non-opening) pine window. To get it to blend with other woodwork in the house, i'm starting with a 5% dewaxed shellac washcoat, then some gel stain, then sealing with 2# cut dewaxed shellac (zinnser seal coat), then finishing up with general finishes topcoat wiping varnish, which may or may not get a bit of pigment in it if necessary for final tint matching.

The gel and varnish are going on with a rag; the shellac steps will be done with a brush.

I'm not worried about getting shellac off the glass, but the rag application of the gel and varnish steps is going to be messy. So I think I'll tape the glass, but still, there will probably be bleeding along the edges. Should I be nervous about scratching the glass if I use a razor blade to get the bleed off? Any other suggestions for getting the gel and varnish off the glass?

Is there a better way to approach this overall? I did 4 windows 3 years ago, except last step was polyurethane instead of varnish because I didn't know better at the time, and I still haven't got the edges of the window glass looking nice (bc I'm nervous with the razor, and suspect that nothing else will work on the polyurethane at this point.)

Could one of you power posters just do a vulcan mind meld with me? I never knew how much I didn't know until I started browsing this forum :-)