One of the NYT articles at the link mentions the stainless steel.
This WaPo article talks about it more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1986/07/02/b...
This article suggests that the DC current treatment was to avoid corrosion (also has some nice illustrations of the support framework for the skin):
https://copper.org/education/liberty/liberty_reclothed2.php
A related blurb just says they built some equipment (probably the equipment to do the DC annealing, but who knows):
https://www.romanmfg.com/roman-manuacturing-helps-restore-th...
The Wikipedia article mentions the annealing and then sand blasting to remove iron from the surface (contaminants on the surface of the stainless can compromise the oxide layer that forms).
Maybe something in there will jog your memory.