Just to clarify, what Mr Percy Snodgrass and Richard C are describing are indeed two very different things. Transfer leaf gilding is where the leaf is loosely glued onto paper, and requires hand pressure to transfer it onto the surface you are gilding. Richard C describes the more difficult (though far superior) technique of water gilding, in which the leaf is loose between sheets of tissue, and is applied to a prepared surface (often gesso, on picture frames) using large squirrel hair brushes. This is the process to use for any carved surface, because you can’t press transfer leaf down into crevices and bits of carving. Whatever you do, avoid Dutch Metal ‘gold’ leaf; it will discolour within weeks. You need to buy good quality gold leaf for exterior work, which will last for years; think of all the church weather-vanes up and down the land; you would not want to be renewing that gilding every year! Good quality loose leaf would cost around £25 per book. Finally, don’t use a yellow base-coat, as you may not be able to spot tiny areas that you’ve missed, which might then allow the ingress of rainwater. Water gilders have used red ochre for centuries, to the extent that it is traditional on interior work only to let tiny fragments of the base coat show.
Blimey what the hell was that. Been getting some strange stuff appearing on my fb, but that shows on my phone as a wheel 
