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Rust is like a cancer in that it keeps growing, looks unsightly, and eats away at its host—in this case, metal—weakening and destroying it. You need to stop it ASAP.
From outdoor furniture, mailboxes, and the tools you left out in the rain to jewelry, cast iron pots and pans, and parts of your car, rust occurs just about everywhere that metal containing iron (including many kinds of steel) comes into prolonged contact with water and oxygen. This combination results in oxidation, better known as rust.
Keeping metal surfaces dry goes a long way toward preventing rust, but of course, this isn't realistic in most cases, and most of us don't even discover the problem until rust is already present. If the rust isn't bad, a light rubbing with sandpaper, steel wool, or a wire brush might be all that's needed to remove it, revealing good metal underneath. But even if you're working with a seriously deteriorated metal, you want to start by removing any loose pieces of rust first before moving on to more brawny treatments....