Plug n Plate gold Questions

[JsPop1]

Hi, I've finally gotten down to try and do a car emblem and the final result is gold colored at best. If you remember I can't get muriatic acid here so the first thing I tried was drain cleaner to reverse strip the chrome. It seemed to be working as I could feel the current ever so slightly. After cleaning I then tried to plug and plate gold onto it and it came out real nice looking in some areas and didn't take at all in others.
I assumed I haven't completely stripped the chrome so I attempted to do it again. This time I used sulphuric,(battery)acid.it seemed to get at it a little better, but still seemed to take too long.(15 minutes and counting on a Toyota emblem.I remembered the email said to be carefull as it would happen quickly). Next I tried a 12 volt battery charger at 2 amps. This went very quick and very small sparks were flying but it left it splotchy in some areas and even went below the chrome (to a red spot) on one area so I was afraid it wouldn't take at all, however it did manage to cover the whole emblem in gold color, just not shiny.
This is my first piece and after I burned through to the red spot I pretty much have written it off however if it can be saved I'd like to as it did come out better than I thought.
How do I save the piece and avoid this in the future. This is actually an emblem that is on a grill and I wanted to do the whole grill as well but not If I'm going to repeat te same mistakes.
Please help me,
Thank You