Everybodys opinion is gonna differ...we all have different ways of doing things. The following procedure has worked for me for many many years....

After removing the wood from your car....

1] Strip with any available stripper. Personally I like either Kwik Liquid No Wash or Dads semi paste. Let the stripper do the work. Best to do it with temps around 75 degrees. You'll see the old finish start to bubble after a couple minutes. If it doesn't and the stripper appears to be drying up, apply more. Try not to let it sit too long due to the possibility of lifting the veneer. I use a rag to wipe the old finish off. Then Using a rag soaked with lacquer thinner, wipe off the work to remove all the old finish.

2] Using water base analyn dye [or stain as some stores call it...just make sure water base!], brush or wipe on with a rag. Brush = heavier color while rag = lighter color. This is the tricky part! You want to match your exsisting color so experiment in a small area to get color match. FYI....I prefer water base for this application due to the fact that oil base stains will fade while water base will not.

3] First make sure you have a nice sunny, low humidity day around 65 or 70 degrees.Using pre cat lacquer, SPRAY on a light tack coat, allow to dry. The tack coat is one quick pfffft across the surface.Apply additional coats a little heavier than the initial tack coat. The flow coats are sprayed both across and back in the same area. Its tricky to get the flow coats to work right. Too heavy, you get bubbles when it dries and too light it sets up before it has a chance to flow/level out. Inbetween each flow coat smooth out with 0000 steel wool, working with the grain and blowing off before recoating. Keep going with the flow coats until you reach the desired look. The last flow coat you can rub with a brown paper bag to smooth it out if you do get some imperfections. Rub with the grain of course.

In a nut shell, thats about it. Not rocket science but does take some practice. Biggest mistake I see most novices make is in the stripping process believe it or not. Most over strip the surface. All you need to do is remove the top coat. You don't want to make it look like new raw, uncolored wood. By leaving the original color [thats under the top clear coat] intact it makes for an easier job when color matching.

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Cheers,
Bill