sailboat rehab

The steel wool is OK, remember to make the wool, a lubricant is used and this is 'soapy'. Hence the need to degrease it. Just swish it around in a little acetone in a tub, throw acetone away and repeat in clean acetone. Should be clean enough, make sure you squeeze the wool hard each time. If you need, do it a third time, some wool is worse than others for lubricant.

As long as you hoover up, no steel fibres will be left. Use appropriate grade of wool for the roughness of the surface. I would anticipate 00 or 000 would probably be OK but you might want rougher. Quite useful to wear rubber gloves to stop steel bits getting into your fingers. It is a good prep method though.