Small defects can be inlet with new wood and checkered and then blended to match. If very careful it can be invisible. I had one stock that the owner knocked off an area of checkering about the size of a fifty cent piece. Deep and nasty gouge it was. He wanted not only it repaired but wanted a small palm swell in the general area. I inlet an new piece of wood, shaped it to give him a small palm swell and the checkered it. By the time it was done it look factory original and I still hate palm swells to this day. But he was a good friend and I could not talk him out of it so I did it. Sometimes working on friends stuff can be the least satisfying.
