Yikes I opened the piano the other night & almost fell over when I saw a deep scratch in the metal plate, 3/4" long.

I called SMC in California & they fedexed me (free) gold powder & said it was to be mixed with "clear laquer"--no amount specified. Paint the scratch with an artist brush.

What kind of clear laquer would you buy at the store? Dh came home with clear satin finish laquer for wood. I'm worried that thats not right.

Anyone have experience with this? Know exactly which clear laquer (satin, gloss, type for metal?) & how much to mix etc.

Thanks so much.

Best advice, call a furniture touch-up artist. He'll know what to do.
As for the lacquer, you need water white nitro-cellulose lacquer, high solids content, high gloss. For your purposes, you mix about 1 tablespoon of bronze powder to three tablespoons of lacquer. You must also fill in the scratch first with a primer coat(epoxy foe metal) to level the scratch before you paint on the lacquer. Then it must be buffed to match the surrounding area.
It's not that easy, I'd call a finish man.
How did this happen? I know if it was my piano someone would be dead by morning.

Actually, scratches in gilt plates fix very easily. You could use clear gloss nail polish, thinned quite a bit, so you don't have a lot of lacquer left over. Auto body filler can be used to level the scratch.

Thanks both of you. I don't know how it happened Curry. It is a scratch in the plate close to the side where the lid hinges. The piano has remained closed or half stick. The kids don't go near it, nor could they have scratched it where it was. I've had 2 techs out in the last 6 months. 1 came out for the prep (excellent reputation from the city, typically works w/piano's far, far nicer than mine, I'm hoping to get him back), had a different (good, local)tuner out recently as well. It's not that noticable in the daytime sun, at night is when I saw it clearly. Maybe whoever scratched it didn't notice it at the time. I felt sick though when I saw it.

Thanks again.