I got some new gilding substrate recently, miniatum, and I wanted to test it out. I made a basic ‘a’ letterform, gently raised, to gild. I waited for it to dry, then used some fairly inexpensive Thai gold I got on eBay to test it out.
As you can see, it worked perfectly, resulting in a lustrous mirror shine with only one layer of gold, and minimal burnishing.
I did kind of accidentally gild my finger, though.