reforming PS caps w/primary-side components

Anybody want to offer advice on reforming filter caps? I'm planning to power up some stuff that hasn't seen voltage in a long time. My plan is to put several low-wattage light-bulbs in series with the thing, to limit the amount of current it will get, and hopefully allow those old caps to reform instead of, say, exploding in my face. It would be better to put the light bulbs (or whatever kind of resistor) in series with the caps themselves on the secondary side of the transformer, right? But if I start digging into the thing's innards like that, there is a real risk that I'll damage it more than an exploding cap would. (In one item, there is a picture tube nearby, and I'm sometimes clumsy...) Now the questions: Could putting the light-bulbs (or whatever) in series on the primary side of the transformer actually produce the desired effect? IIRC, a step-down transformer divides the voltage but multiplies the current. So I'd have to limit the current on the primary side that much more to keep the secondary current down, right? Also, what kinds of things could be damaged by getting less voltage than they were designed for? I could imagine hard disks spinning too little to lift the heads from the surface, for instance. (This is moot, because there are no hard disks in any of the equipment I'm looking at.) How about CRT's? Could too little deflection make the beam hit something it shouldn't? Anything else? Thanks, Bill.