I have a bin for blades that have been taken out of the scales for re-scale.
The bin is segmented into sections for different stages of buffing.

Well... Unbeknownst to me, a little over a week ago my four year old daughter poured her soda in the bin. (I haven't been able to establish why)

All of the blades were coated in red rust - all 92 of them. I used a product to convert the red rust to black, and gave them all a once over with some fine steel wool to knock the gunk off.

The good news is that the rusting is all stopped.

The bad news is that every blade is covered in devil's spit and pitted deeply enough to not buff out easily. Everything etched is going to lose the etching. Some of the full hollows are going to have to keep some pitting. Blades that were finished to polishing stage are going to need to go back to the low grits.

I don't think any of them are totally destroyed, but there are a lot that will never be the same again.