Finally got some pics of my delta... I’m not sure I can eat through that rust effectively but I haven’t started yet, hoping it isn’t as pitted as it looks:
Krang,
You can do it...I've tackled worse and they come out looking great. As Isaiah mentions above - you're going to need to learn about electrolysis. Don't worry, it's absolutely easy as can be. Don't let the technical type info scare you away from doing it, super easy and works wonders.
Little tip - Use electrolysis for all the big stuff, the drill head, table, base, etc. But buy yourself a gallon (or 3 gallon pail) of Evaporust for all the little bits and hardware. It's expensive, but it does last a long time if you are good about cleaning your rusty parts thoroughly to remove the grease and oils and loose rust. If you throw dirty stuff in there it shortens the life significantly. This is also true for the e-tank as well, in my opinion.
Your biggest challenge is going to be disassembly with that press - I'd suggest you just buy a can of PB Blaster (or your preferred penetrant) and spray all the hardware down every night for no less than a week straight before even trying to tackle it. Also, when you do finally get to the point where you are trying to remove the drill head and table, you'll save yourself a TON of heartache if you spend some time with a wire wheel on the column, knocking off all the loose rust before you start trying to slide anything up it. The table and head actually have pretty tight tolerances, so that extra rust is just going to act as a brake for any movement. If it were my press, I'd just take OD measurement of that column and see if Metal Supermarkets has a Cold-Rolled steel tube in that diameter (don't forget to get one with the right wall thickness, or something close). The reason I say that is that you will probably find that cleaning that column up will be the most labor intensive part of the restoration - it's really rusty and likely pitted pretty badly. So starting with a new one you can polish up will just save you a ton of heartache for about $70.
Lastly, regarding the data-tags. Knock the blind rivets out from the back with a punch, don't try to remove them with a chisel or you'll just destroy the tag. Last resort would be to place painter's tape around the tag and remove the head of the data tag with a dremel grinder, then just drill out and replace the blind rivets, either with new ones, or just a small machine screw once you re-tap them.
Good luck!
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