On Behalf Of Michael B. Brutman 
  The question now is about the conductive pad.
Cleaning with rubbing
 alcohol has not helped anything.  Is there anything besides pencil
 graphite that will work to lower the resistance?  I'm looking for
 something that will last a while, and your concerns about the pencil
 graphite have me concerned too.  I'm not going to desolder and repair
 every keyswitch so I won't be able to move dodgy ones to the keypad to
 avoid using them.  I'd rather take a little more time and find a better
 solution .. 
Here's a word you don't hear often - "Aquadag".  That ought to do it.
GC also has some metallic ink emulsions.
Cheers,
Chuck