It was evident that the rust present on this plane was mostly just surface rust. And I didn't really want to do a rust conversion because that would have left me with dull and mottled coloring. So I decided to skip any pre-soaking and went straight to work with a brass wheel in my bench grinder and a couple of wire wheels on my dremel.

I started with the big pieces:

Naturally, I disassembled the plane as far as I could. I'm not going to post all of my pics here but I did take plenty so I could make sure I got all the bits and pieces back in the proper spots and in the proper order. Once disassembled, I went to work with the wire wheel. It was a quick and easy cleanup since I didn't care whether or not the nickel plating was preserved. I didn't go out of my way to make sure it was all removed but it gave up pretty easily anyway

Here we can see the difference before and after wire wheeling:

Sorry if those images make any of you purists nauseated ;-P But dang, I love seeing this thing shine

The depth adjuster can't be removed (easily at least) because the pin that acts as a key is pressed into the casting. So I left it in place and cleaned it and the surrounding areas up with a small wheel on my Dremel tool.

So, after a couple hours of brushing, I'm even more excited about this bad boy

Next time I'll see if things go as quickly and smoothly with all of the smaller bits and pieces. Thanks for dropping by!