In the year preceding the sale of our house in Austin, I had to store all my drum gear in our detached laundry room while we renovated. This room was also called the "Rust Zone" because anything metal was doomed. Sure enough, all my drums and hardware rusted over completely. We've been in TN for 3 years and I'm just now getting around to restoring everything to get it sold off.
Here's the tip: if you have any chrome plated hardware (not necessarily drums--anything) that's rusted out, put it in a bucket and soak in Coca Cola for a few hours. It removes the bad stuff and leaves the chrome untouched! It's pretty amazing for a no-labor approach.
Actually, let me tell you: removing every lug from three drums, soaking, polishing and then re-attaching them is hardly 'no labor'...it's a total PITA! But, it does give it new life.
Tip, for an awesome worn finish put things in beans laundry room ;)
Dunno if you get it in the US but Brown sauce is great for cleaning stuff up.
Ahhh, cokelore.
Snopes has an entire section (http://snopes.com/cokelore/cokelore.asp) dedicated to it. Bruvand also dedicated multiple chapters in books throughout the years to this subject.
If anyone's curious about the science! part of this, soda is acidic. Really, really acidic -- the pH is close to 2.5. This is part of why it's so horrible for your teeth. When the pH in your mouth drops below 5, your calcium starts to go. (Carbonation also bonds with calcium to form calcium cabonate. Good for stomachs, not good enough to to sacrifice your tooth enamel for maybe.)
This reminds me that I need to watch things in the basement now that all my gear is down there.
My office/workspace in my old house became the same way, all of my tools because rusted, among other things... like surface rust on my Vox Night Train. I wonder if the coke trick would work with it... i'll do some reading.