This may well be stating the obvious but this little tip comes to mind now as I've been doing rather a lot of this recently so here it is……
For those of us who use reversible power drills and wire brushes to de-rust old bits of CMP try this: every couple of minutes reverse the rotation of the drill and run it for a few more minutes then change back. You'll find the brush cuts fresh each time the direction is changed as the rotation is against the natural bend of the wires in the brush. You also get much more useful life out of the brush.
Again stating the obvious remember to hang on to the drill from the other side or else it will jump out of your hands and end up winding your best overalls into the chuck……now how do I know this ????
Happy de-scaling
Pete