Thank you all for the kind comments.
Jeff, On the nick and dot I roll a flat engraver. I cut a straight boarder line with a standard 90-degree graver. Then I switch over to a flat graver. I do the spacing by "eye" putting one corner of the flat in the cut line, I drive the graver in along the line but with the edge tilted up at an angle to the work surface. As the graver is driven forward, I roll the flat into the work and then back out again resulting in a little cut triangle. So I am rolling the flat into and out of the original cut line and proceeding along the direction of the border rather than at 90 degrees to it. I use the same flat graver to do the dots....and the same motion.....just very tiny and, obviously, with the point opposite the nicks. So I do the whole border with just two graver shapes.....90 degree and a flat. The intervals I do by eye. Mine are not all that consistently spaced when I blow the engraving up on the screen. But it looks OK at a distance.....I think...
And by the way, Smylee Grouch, the sun burst pattern is done the same way. I lay out and cut the outline of the rays with a 90 degree square graver. Then switch over to the flat graver and roll it in and out as I proceed along the ray. The little triangles done on the opposite side are done exactly the same and just cut between the opposing nicks. It took me a while, for both boarders and the sun burst , to learn how to cut the nicks and dots in either direction. I try always to orient the work so I can cut from right to left, but on the close side I have to roll the flat graver away from me and on the far side I have to roll it toward me. I am still not as consistent as I would like, but like all skills, it only comes with practice.
Hope this helps.
