So just like it says in the title I have some molds that need to be brought back from the dead. My father-in-law recently passed away and left all of his casting equipment to me as he is the one who originally got me into bullet casting. Well unfortunately either some of the folks packing up his house or he himself somehow got these molds wet and they were stored wet for a few months till I PCSed recently and finally picked them up. Well the question is what's the best way to get the rust off these things without doing more harm than good. Admittedly a lot of the rust is just surface rust and is only on the outside of the blocks with very little rust on the inside of the molds. At least most of them anyway. There are about 40 of them total so I don't really think a light sanding by hand is going to be the most practical way of going about this. Is there something that I should soak them in? I remeber my grandfather once used a bath of lye mixed into water with a car battery charger on both ends to get rust off of railroad ties but I'm scared that might hurt more than help. Penetrating oil is just going to make the rust oily and the same with gun oil... The best idea I have come up with so far is to hit them up with a very thin bristled wire wheel, maybe a brass or bronze one. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.