Some really great comments, thanks
Psychman, what was the colour like? The original finish was definitely not black, but not far off. I guess it might have darkened with age though, and anything close would probably do.
Excellent point Stevehertz, I guess an alternative would be to mask off the light areas and spray with something dark, before spray lacquering the whole set. I have found this (which was mentioned on an old thread on here without any conclusion), but not sure it's dark enough. Any recommendations?
https://www.homecareessentials.co.uk...dark-oak-400ml
I could get both and have a bit of an experiment. There are some ridges I could get some card into to try and stop bleeding, but would need to go careful/small brush.