Funny thing you said that about the sanding sealer, I'm testing just that order stain/sanding sealer on some plywood I had laying around. Let's see what happens.

I'm planning on doing just that: dying it black, then sanding it and going with the red stain. I tried a very diluted version of black to avoid having to sand it back too much, but that didn't really highlight the grain and only gave a sort of grayish tinge to the whole thing. So, back to the original plan. I'll probably use maybe only 400 or 320 grit to avoid sanding through the veneer.