Crosley 02CA dial restoration help needed!

I'm working on my Crosley 02CA console and have a real dilemma with the metal dial face:



How do I remove this rust with out destroying the dial?

Terry

It might not be as bad as I thought.
I cropped this off a picture I had taken of the radio shortly after I got it:



Looks like only a small part of the rust shows above the frame edge. And it looks like only a small part of the numbers is affected. Maybe I can save it after all.

Terry

I was thinking of naval jelly and q-tips to remove the worst of it and taking extreme care when working around the numbers. It's definitely save-able.