Originally Posted by EnLaCalle
It's made it so that the metal sort of juts out a little bit from the edge of the tooth instead of being flush with the rest of it like it should be.
Tiny scratches are no big deal. But in this case it does sound like the chainring has been used and the force of the chain has caused the leading edge of the tooth to mushroom a bit - hence metal jutting out a bit toward the sides. This is totally normal wear. By Sugino chainring has this slight mushroom effect after 300mi of heavy use. Either you are gona cause it to mushroom (more likely with higher ratio and hard riding) or you buy it that way
Al