Here's an example of using a dilute solution of oxalic acid for removing surface rust from chromed steel. Here's a lightly rusted Kungenthal mill before treatment:



And after a 2-hour soak in the acid:



Some pitting remains due to the very light chrome applied to this mill, but the rust is gone. The nice thing about this approach is that there's hardly any manual polishing involved and no abrasives to damage the soft chrome. The granulated acid is usually sold at paint and home improvement stores as wood bleach. For de-rusting purposes, I usually mix it at a ratio of 1 teaspoon to a gallon of water.

There are lots of good discussions of this technique on various automotive and bicycle forums in the internet, be aware of the chemical safety/toxicity issue, as well as compatibility with other metals and paint.

I've searched and searched, but have not found an answer to this: can a random orbit sander be used for polishing? DeWalt mentions nothing on their site (that I found).

-phillip