Yeah, rust, boil, card. The boiling neutralizes the rusting process and converts the rust from ferrous oxide to ferro-ferric oxide (I had to look that up, I didn't know it off the top of my head like an expert would. I don't want to give the wrong impression that I'm superman at this). Basically, as I understand it, it makes it inactive. As to why it lessens pits and etchings, the more I think about it, it is counter intuitive. I thought the booklet I got warned of this, but I cant find it, perhaps they just look less noticeable b/c of the bluing and sanding.

However, all the sanding marks I made to get the blue to "bite" are gone, I'm sure about that. It may be that the surface material that I roughened to get the blue to take is gone, and that made the pits more shallow.