I will look at Sam's tutorial again on how to do running wheat border. Sometimes I just wing it. I try to use a120 from time to time. I have good luck on flats but on a firearm the canvas changes shape too much and I end up making horrendous cuts. I will try as you suggest and make the nick cuts with a 120. Thx again! 
Pretty good.... I think you're about ready to move on to something more challenging.
I did. I just came off a 2 week vacation. Aside from moving my new lathe into the basement, I spent every day engraving a Ruger New Vaquero. I really learned how to properly dub my graver. Got to where I didn't fracture my graver or have to resharpen on the flats. On recoil shields and cylinder was resharpening every 5-15 mins. Did the barrel last and had to resharpen 2x max when I first started it and finished the barrel without resharpening. The microscope helped more than I have words for, especially seeing micro fractures on the point. Eliminating all vibration helped a lot also. I engraved these pistols earlier in the year. Did the finish during my vacation also. The purple in the finish should morph into a blue black over the next few weeks.
If I took better pictures you would see all the wanky scrolls, uneven, varied depth shade lines. Crooked lines. Learned a lot about cutting straight lines on a curve. If I roll my graver perpendicular to the cut it will appear straight and of even width and depth. At the time I cut these I did not fully understand how to properly dub my point and didn't check my point frequently for micro cracks. I found the micro cracks cause loss of graver control. 
