Today I learned today that TTL level and RS-232 signals are inverted.
https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/215
The salea thought it was dealing with TTL levels, but I had put in some 10k resistors since I only had access to the RS-232 level signal.
My bluetooth module must assume TTL as well, as it passed the inverted signal down the chain. I could have stuck another max232 chip in there, but a little more poking around and I was able to trace and tap in to TTL level signals from the scale. Everything is communicating nicely now.