I like a dental rotary for background, inlays and undercutting rather than a flat graver. Combines several steps in one. With rotary you can remove background and stipple in the same step. After lowering an area I'm just bouncing on the bottom to resemble stippling. It will look matted after blackened. In the early 80s I was using a dental handpiece that was made by Buffalo Dental. I then used a NSK Presto. The one I use now is BenchJewel Rotary that is on the site:
https://www.benchjewel.com/rotary.htm