All that glitters is gold.

The start and the end of any woodworking project are to me, probably the most tedious and boring parts. Unsurprisingly, they are also probably the most important. The start, after the initial euphoria of designing, involves an awful lot of planing, sanding, gluing up panels, more sanding and cutting panels of wood to size. After a week (or two or three) of it, the process just seems interminable and slightly soul destroying. Yet, if not done properly, you'll have pieces of wood which aren't flat or square and which warp, with the grain going in every which direction.

There is a pretty fun (if a little stressful) bit in the middle which involves putting things together and seeing things take shape, then you go back to a life of dreariness which involves sanding and scraping, finishing, sanding, finishing, sanding, finishing, etc. If you do this right, you get a shiny, gleaming piece of furniture at the end of it - extremely tactile and strokable, just inviting you to run your hands all over it. Do this wrong, and you'll see pencil marks, splotches, orbital sander marks, router burns, raised grain and all manner of other unsightly things marring the finished product.

So what's brought on this bout of musings? Well, at the moment I'm working on a kind-of secret project which involves a heck of a lot of planing and sanding. I am hoping to finish it by the end of term and bequeath it on the rightful recipient, who is going to be quite surprised and I hope, pleased with the end result, although its had a bit of a round-a-bout way in the making. You'd think writing about it would defeat the super secret element, but I'm banking on the fact that no one really reads these things anyway.

In terms of course work, we've moved on to gilding this week. The initial application of rabbit skin glue (not as smelly as vaunted) and gesso is messy but fun - you kind of slap it on (as evenly as possible) in as messy a fashion as possible. Next though comes the not-so-fun bit, hours of sanding. Yes, more sanding, and possible more tedious than normal sanding as every time you try to get that final bit to make it perfectly smooth, you end up sanding through to the wood and having to slap on more of the gooey stuff and start all over again. After that you bang on some colourful clays, and hey presto, you're good to coat everything in gold leaf. I've found the laying of the leaf the most enjoyable bit. You tend not to breathe during the entire process, as a last minute exhale at the wrong moment will cause the entire leaf to fold, crinkle and float away, but other than that its a delicate fun little exercise.

A selection of tools required for the verre eglomise technique of gilding the back of glass panels to create a mirror

My lion after 100 layers of gesso (and much sanding), base yellow bole/clay and top coat bole/clay coats.

An action shot of gilding in progress