I'd advise the use of Pickle 2 to remove the chrome (electrolytically or not), but then use the MetalX to remove the nickel. Don't use electrolytic methods with Pickle #2 for sustained periods. It WILL eat away the base metal!
After the nickel is removed, you can decide. You'll probably want to remove the rust with a product like Naval Jelly. Soaking in Pickle #2 can be effective against rust as well...but if you are not careful, you might go too far. Naval Jelly is much safer. What's left at the end of all this is probably some copper plating and mild pits where the rust was. You can plate up with flash copper, use solder to fill the pits, clean well, more copper, sand, etc. till the pits are gone. Then, polish and nickel.
Alternatively you can abrasive blast the whole thing clean to the base metal, a quick pass with the Brightex wheel, copper plate, and solder fill as before. I prefer ths abrasive blast method because it is much faster and much more effectively removes everything you don't want....and, you start at the base metal again. If there is rust starting underneath the old copper, you have to abrasive blast all they way down to the base metal.
Ken
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