There are 2 ways to run an honest gold standard that will iron out the bumps and dips in economic "cycles". One way is for the only economic rule of the Fed to be that the price of gold must not vary. Continuous corrections are signaled byincreasing and decreasing demand for liquidity which is satisfied by open market bond operations to stabilize gold.
Thje other way is a circulating gold coinage with the free coinage of gold. You take 5 ounces of gold to the treasury and the treasury gives you 5 ounces of gold coins. These coins could circulate beside the fiat currency and would be an instant visible-to-everyman check on inflation. Either or both would be of immense value to the economy as they would vastly reduce the costs of dealing with fluctuating and less than perfectly predictible values of currencies.
How about a currency backed by 10% gold for starters? Our currency used to have at least some backing by gold and silver where now there is none.