Problem with Stripping & Copy Chrome

[tomodell]

I am completly new to all of this. I purchased the wand kit for copy chrome and nickel plating. I also purchased some chrome stripper. I am working on some small fishing reel parts that were originally chrome plated brass. I have two problems:
1. Stripping. I have polished the parts as well as I can, but this is difficult because they are small. They are free from corrosion now, but still have most of the old chrome on them with patches of brass where the corrosion was.
I thought it best to remove all of the old chrome, so I tried using the Caswell chrome stripper. The only instructions that came with it consists of a single sentence on the bottle. It says to use it with the wand, the same way I would as if I were plating. It says to connect the negative wire to the wand and the positive to the object. I believe this is the opposite way you normally use the wand, since the red wire normally connects to the wand. This was tricky because I had to add a little jumper wire with alligater clips in order to attach the red wire to the object.
Anyway this stripper seemed to have no effect on the chrome, no matter how I connected it. So I gave up and decided to try the copy chrome on top of the patchy chrome and brass object.
2. Copy Chrome The copy chrome went on very nicely with the wand, and I thought I was doing great. Afterward it had a dull unpolished chrome look, which is what I expected. When I attempted to polish the part, the new chrome instantly disappeared. In fact, it came off so easy that I could rub it off with a towel.
What am I doing wrong?
Tom

[tomodell]

I just realized something. Maybe my chrome stipper is not working because the parts are nickel plated instead of chrome. How can I tell the difference?