Reply by live4ever

Water-based anything will lift the grain and require sanding. If you’ve not dealt with raised grain before, it’s annoying, and it will certainly make your glass smooth finish rough.

If you really want to try avoiding sandpaper as a skill-building exercise, you might be able to use a card scraper to smooth things out after the dye.

Another option would be to seal the wood with shellac prior to using the dye. Of course, then you may not get the penetration you want from the dye and it would act as more of a toner/glaze than a stain.

Try some options on a sample board:
dye + scraper
shellac + dye

-- Optimists are usually disappointed. Pessimists are either right or pleasantly surprised. I tend to be a disappointed pessimist.