[codefox1]

I use a very thin spotting brush like photographers of old used to do to touch up negatives or prints. I have a few ancient tubes of artist's oils, and I try to fix up scars with alternate dashes of similar colors. Of course, if the surface is damaged, I'll cut out the bad parts, and fill it with a wood filler first. If a half-*ss repair has been attempted, yoou must get this out too. Now, under some molding on the older sets exists veneer that you can harvest and transplant to worn areas. Not always perfect, but nobody will ever know you did it. Scrape, bleach, fill, paint, and finish. Tinted lacquer will hid a multiple of sins. Just give all the previous steps a couple of weeks to dry out and neutralize before the final attack with Mohawk.

You can always finish up a small area with "French Polish", I believe they call it, it is shellac and linseed oil if I recall, and it is daubed on and rubbed until the repair is invisable. Oh if I could only remember the details, but I do remember seeing an expert fixing a few flaws on a piano many years ago. Amazing. Of course this wouldn't do for the place just above the keyboard on the right side where the glass or mug rests. But anywhere else on the instrument, I think it would be OK.

In the end, it doesn't have to look perfect. I mean, which of us antiques looks better than an old Philco?