That's what I've heard, too, but I couldn't find brass wool anywhere. I used steel wool on a couple of parts, and it worked reasonably well but left some noticeable fine scratches. The crumpled up aluminum foil left no scratches, was easy to get ahold of (I used the foil that the bread served with dinner was warmed in - recycling at its finest!), and worked well enough to take some pretty serious rust off of some 40-year old steel handlebars.