[Eric]

Originally Posted by Hellraizer

I don't know if it's the best way too do it, but i just soaked all my parts in WD-40 for an hour or so......no more rust.

I put WD-40 on a rag and wipe the rust off.

[HighGain510]

I went to home depot and the guy recommended this stuff called "Naval Jelly" so I tried that. I'm not going to do the bridge but I used it on some screws and it worked pretty well. After seeing the bridge in person it's not bad enough to make me want to take it apart and do too much to it, but I might try rubbing it with WD-40 now!

[NiCkMiLnE]

a little wire wood and wd40 will work, and when you have it all off, put clean nail varnish over the most raw, exposed areas so it wont rust again sine the chroming has worn off.

[Stitch]

It depends on the finish on the hardware. Electroplating/electrolysing the part may work, but certain finishes are not actually conductive and will not work, such as anodised parts, and the experiment Ryan demonstrated, while effective on rusted through wishbones, will quite happily strip all of the finish off your cosmo Edge II

Just be careful. I'd go for the soaking in WD40, and then cleaning each bit meticulously with a toothbrush.

[newamerikangospel]

Buying new parts and installing them will remove all rust from your guitar

The bad thing about using most industrial type of cleaning or "derusting" solution is it will remove most from the metal (ie finishes which would serve no purpose). If its gold hardware, I would suggest maybe a jewelry cleaning solution/compoud, but if you dont want to have damaged stuff on your guitar, I would say buy new hardware, or use a solution to remove everything, and then have someone refinish it. Bad thing is, unless you have a personal contact/friend that does this you will end up spending as much/more on the refinishing.