You should know that you can not plate over chrome.
Nothing will plate to it. All of the chrome has got to stripped off first.
If you recieved the Caswell plating manual, read through the section on "pickels" and it will instruct you on how to strip off the chrome.
Additionally, the plating under chrome always nickel.
Copy Chrome (or nickel) will not plate to itself without reactivating it first. You have to pickel the part in dilute battery acid first prior to plating.
See the Caswell manual, it tells you how to do it.
Another thing to consider is that even if you did manage to remove the chrome (and there are still pits in the underlying nickel plate and brass base metal) no amount of Copy Chrome will cove up the pits.
You will have to copper plate the part (after a nickel or Copy Chrome strike coat first if the base metal is steel) and sand (yes I did say sand) the copper down until all the blemishes are gone. This could take multiple copper coats, sanding between coats (think of the copper like high build automotive primer prior to painting.....same idea. When all of the blemishes are gone, buff the copper to a high shine, clean the part, then plate with the Copy Chrome.
As far as your use of automotive polishing compound:
I once used "Blue Magic" metal polish on some small brass fittings prior to plating them to bring up the shine after machining the parts.
I throughly cleaned the parts with lacquer thinner and "Dawn" dish detergent prior to nickel plating them. To my suprise, the plating did not "stick" and started to flake off.
Reason?......The metal polish got into the pores of the metal and no amount of manual cleaning could remove the polish (must have had some silicone in it).
I would suggest you never use any type of car wax/compound on your parts prior to plating. Use a buffing wheel and be sure the part is free of all buffing compound, finger prints, etc. prior to plating.
It may be out of your reach, however, I ultrasonic clean all my small parts prior to plating, Whatever you do DO NOT touch the part with your hands after cleaning the part. Body oils will prevent the plate from bonding or will look "splotchy".
I have been plating for a long time and I am always learning something new. Don't give up, keep trying....it will be worth the effort.
I would also suggest you get into tank plating verses brush plating.
It will cost a little more, however, the benifits far out weigh the initial cost.
Hope this helps.
George W.
See some of my plating at:
http://users.adelphia.net/~patpawz/geo/plating.htm