Sapele tabletop bubbling up stain!

[Randall Frey]

Just completed our new dining room table and am in the process of applying some finish. The stain keeps bubbling up through the grain even days after the stain was applied I keep wiping them off, very minimal but there. I want to move ahead with the sealing process but not sure if I have to wait for however long it takes for the bubbling to stop. The wood is Saplele, a type of Mahogany, it has been block sanded to 220 and the stain is Minwax Red Mahogany. On my test pieces I sanded to 220, stained, waited a few days, wiped off the small bubbles of stain that appeared, made up and applied a 1lb cut shellac, the next day I saw a few bubbles poke up through the shellac, I just wiped them off, smoothed down with 0000 steel wool, wiped on some grain filler, sanded, then applied 5 coats of wipe on poly. The finished test piece still looks ok no bubbles through the poly. Have you seen this before? Any thoughts? Thanks

[Steve Schoene]

This is a common occurance. Your solution is just to continue on wiping off stain that bleeds before it dries. It may take a several days since the oil in the stain doesn't cure very well in the pores. Once it stops it will be OK. Just another reason to avoid Minwax, though any old based stain that dries slowly could do the same.

[Randall Frey]

Thanks, today there is less bubbling up so I will wait. I do have another question about grain filler. I think I will post a new thread for that.