I've done the dye/sanding/dye etc., technique about a dozen times now to pop the curl. I seem to be getting worse at it. I've watched a bunch of videos and read a bunch of articles, all of which differ in many ways. I did better the first few times, but have lost something. My problem seems to be that, when sanding off the coats of (transtint) dye, the dyed stripes get sanded off to the same degree as the background, so I end up with either no contrast or, a muddy looking workpiece.

My protocol has been: sand to 100 grit; apply dark dye; sand w/ 150-220 to remove dye; apply second coat of dye; repeat; apply 1-2 coats of other dye colors; thin coat BLO; shellac topcoat. None of that was original thinking. What might be wrong?
In the photo, you can see places where more sanding would remove the dyed stripes, and other places where there's too much dark dye left on between stripes.

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