Ah ha, I see. There is always more to the story that first told....
If it were me, I would carefully cover the "Classic" and do my best to work around it.
Dave Waits once suggested 00 steel wool and some kinda lubricant to remove small scratches and rust. I've used the 00 steel wool along with CorrosionX to do this on my Cbob, worked great. Remember to work with the grain of the metal.
Good luck.