Filling engraved letters with black paint

I bought a Nikon EL2 the other day. The camera was in good condition, but the black paint in the Nikon engraved brand had chipped off partially. With a toothpick I removed the rest of the paint.

To fill the engraving with paint, I used a toothpick to apply tiny drops of ordinary black satin alkyd paint. I made sure the paint spread all over the engravings.

The difficulty is in removing the excess paint. When you try to wipe it with paper, the paper will suck the paint out of the engraving. The trick is to wrap a Kleenex tight around your vinger and then move with a very quick and light pressure swipe over the area to be cleaned. I ended up doing this several times and I stopped at the result in the middle of the picture below. If I tried to go any further, I had to reapply paint, which ran all over the faceplate again.

After letting the paint dry for an hour, I removed the traces of paint using a Kleenex lightly dampened with White Spirit. Again in quick, low pressure motions. Avoid getting any White Spirit in the embossed area.

I'm happy with how it turned out. In the right part of the capital letter 'N' there is a small blemish in the paint, caused by a dust particle that got caught in there whilst the paint was drying. I'll leave it this way to avoid removing the paint.

The EL2 is looking lovely with the logo restored to nice matte black!