We have an English dining room table, turn-of-the century walnut burl veneer with peripheral ‘oysters’ of lignum vitae or yew.    Some minor irregular marks have recently appeared on one part of the table – under a lupe the marks look like crusty flat ‘blisters’ in the finish.   They are not large, maybe 1/16″ – 3/32″ across.   The table has not been used in about 8 weeks or so.

I’m assuming the table has a French polish or shellac-based finish – in fact the ‘blisters’ (heat damage?  alcohol?) look a bit like crusty little shellac flakes under the lupe.   While we most likely will hire a professional to look at these, does an approach of re-amalgamating these small finish defects with denatured alcohol sound like it would make sense?   It looks as if these small areas would ‘melt’ into the surrounding finish if that was done.

Or does this add more risk than it is worth?

Thanks for your input – (I would post a photo but the marks are very very small)