Gold plated pins, attempted to clean up before reverse electroplating

[Virothisk]

Good afternoon,
So I had a jug of plated pins and wanted to get the little bits of plastic out of them before I put them in a sulphuric cell. I thought the best way to do this would simply be to heat them up and burn off the small amount of plastic. So I did that and it worked OK, but now there is soot on the pins. They also look dirty now, even if I wash them off well.

So I did a 6x rinse with some soap on the first two rinses and the water comes off clean. Problem is the soot is still there a bit.

Can I still use a reverse electroplating cell, or would an AP solution work better? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy some nitric and dump the pins into 50/50 nitric and water?

Thanks in advance.

 

[nickvc]

Pins can be problematical because they can and are made of different alloys and metals, if you have the cell it is the best way to strip them without causing a mix of metal salts and residues.