Wondering if you can glue on the nock before
staining/??New at this.Stained a couple shafts with a dark leather dye and can,t tell the way the grain goes.Don,t want to put the nock on wrong.

No reason why you couldn't nock first other than the fact that you would have to be more careful not to get stain on nock.  I like to stain the bare shaft to make sure I get it sealed good around where the base of the nock will be.  I mark the end of the shaft with magic marker where I want the nock to be located before I stain.  Then just place the nock according to my mark.

What John49 said, just use a marker. Has worked for me for a long time.

I dont cut my nock tapers till I stain and seal, then i cut the tapers and im looking at bare wood and its real easy to see the end grain.

When I make wood arrows,I'll cut a little V-notch at the point end for putting on the nock at the proper orientation.A V-notch will be there until I'm ready to cut and do the point taper.I used to mark it with a marker but that would sometimes disappear with the stain.

I mark them with my fingernail at the top of the taper (on the shaft body) before dipping.  The little groove shows up even with the thickness of the paint.  Then I just line up the nock index with the little groove.

You can glue the nocks on anytime. If you can't see the grain after staining it generally will show up after the first dip. I always mark mine with a sharpie anyway.

Since going to wood a couple of months ago I buy my shafts from Hildebrand already cut to length and tapered. I install the points and nocks and simply use painters tape over them then go ahead  stain and finish.

There is more than one way to skin a cat and the same goes with making arrows.  I glue the nocks on after the finish, but doing it before will work, too.  You could probably sand a spot down on the point end to find the grain or re-cut the taper just a bit to find it.

Oil base stains will bring out the rift grain in a shaft, whereas the dyes seem to color everything the same.