Use this paint remover, Motsenbocker's Lift off and a plastic scraper, it is awesome.
In the pictures is a 1953 Quintette that had three coat of paint on it, builders beige, dark grey and light grey. Really old stuff
I did the side of the box this morning in an hour and a half from first application of remover to final scrape.
The coin box shows the remover left on to soak for about 40 mins, one pass with the scraper.
The paint underneath is toasted but I have enough left to make a template. My plan going foreword is to copy the design using tracing paper and then spray gluing the traced image to the bristol board and then cutting out the stencil.
I cut some some samples of the original paint form under the leg mounts and had them paint matched at home depot and got some 2 dollar samplers made up. I have one of them old latex sprayers and will try that to apply the paint.