Surface mount on home drawn circuit board

I've been slow to adopt surface mount components for home construction but watching Paul, VK3HN's, technique has convinced me it's the way to go. The way he lays components on a board, draws the tracks with a pen, then simply solders components on to the surface seems particularly elegant.

As a test I've built a simple emitter follower audio stage with a 3904 small signal NPN transistor. The transistor is tiny but able to be soldered. I've used a normal Sharpie pen in the past but recently picked up some Staedtler permanent markers which are often recommended. Here's the resist and you can see the transistor top right:

I etch with ferric chloride in a small plastic container.

This small amount has done a few boards already. It would last longer if I coloured in more of the copper area. Paul tells me that warming the solution will keep it going even longer if desired.

This board wasn't great but worked well enough to solder components in place.

A wonderful benefit of surface mount components is that you can buy these books containing all common values for not much money. I bought the large 1206 sized components to make it easier for me to work with them. It's great to have plenty of every value resistor and capacitor at hand in a compact book. The result, on my first attempt, is a bit rough:

Working with surface mount is not hard if you have good light, a magnified headset, tweezers, and something to hold down the part while you solder the first connection to a component.