I am not a professional. In fact I really am just a poor house wife, and decided to do it myself.

What I have completed so far, is:

1. Removing all the old varnish & paint
2. Sanded down a few areas that still had stain, but did not make the whole chair clean raw. In fact most areas of chair were left unevenly semi stained. with streaks from the varnish remover product.
3. Applied oil based stain, wiped away excess. (2 applications - 24 hrs apart)

Now it is 3 days after and what I have found is that some areas of the chair are unexpectedly much darker than in other places. It almost looks like I deliberately applied a thick layer. I thought I added an even coat but....

Anyhow my question is Should I want to correct this problem, should I sand down the dark parts before varnishing? And then restain it? Or just go straight to varnishing?

AND was I suppose to have done something to the wood after sanding?

And..Because I was working on the chairs outside and we live in a big polluted city I found that debris and dust in the air stuck to the stain when drying. What could I have done to prevent this?

Thanks alot for your time and reponses.