[SVD]

I'd take Damien's implied suggestion and get your husband to switch to the more engraver-friendly 416 for his bolsters.

But until then, does he have any extra / scrap pieces? I know these days we tend to use thin plates and keep them around but I've read several times that the old way was to start with a thick plate, engrave until it was full, grind it back smooth, and repeat until you worked it down to a thin plate. I believe the theory was that it would take about that long to have something worth keeping.