Well, it works... kinda.
You need to polish really well and then nickel plate and then polish really well again and then gold plate, and then it works.
Copper works really easily but isn't so pretty.
Polishing a lot is the key to plating.
Paying shapeways to do it works really well though, and is worth your time.
Also the blackening solution at caswellplating.com works great too. It's just a dip, and it turns the surface of the metal black. rubbing it again with sandpaper makes it shiny. It's neat if you have a bumpy surface, turn it black, and then sand the high points down so they show up shiny. check the pic
The darker one is darker than you see in the picture. it really makes it dark. Bad cellphone pic.