Removing house paint ?

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What's the best method ( Product ) to remove a top layer of house paint without harming the bottom layer . I have tried the citrus base Go Gone with no luck . Oven cleaner might work but I'm afraid it might be to harsh ?
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ww2 bottom bar.jpg
 
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You might try Paint thinner. it's not as chemically hot as laquer thinner so may remove overspray with a clean cloth and some elbow grease. try it somewhere like the bottom bracket and see.

klean-strip-paint-thinner-solvents-cleaners-qkpt94003-64_1000.jpg
 
You might try Paint thinner. it's not as chemically hot as laquer thinner so may remove overspray with a clean cloth and some elbow grease. try it somewhere like the bottom bracket and see.

klean-strip-paint-thinner-solvents-cleaners-qkpt94003-64_1000.jpg
I've used gun scrubber on spray bomb jobs but it takes a lot of scrubbing and patients, but the original paint was not harmed much. It would have been a little better if I had not tried to hurry but where there was original paint it was all still there, just a little thinner in a few spots. Paint thinner works with less scrubbing than Gun Scrubber. Don't try oven cleaner, it might make a gooy mixture of both paints that will be hard to temove. I only use oven cleaner as a pretreatment or in between treatment with paint remover if I want all the paint gone. If the frame is rusty then soaking the frame in vinigar or Iron Out often lifts a lot of the paint as it attacks the rust. A lot of scrubbing with a solvent works best but old house paint is better than the new EPA required stuff and is very hard to get off without using paint remover.
 
I thought of this the other day when I was watching an episode of Ask This Old House.

How much of that old house paint that you want to remove has a lead in it. Lead paint was outlawed in 1978. Chances are that paint you're trying to remove is older than that.
 
Sandman:
All of the advice above is worthwhile. The reality is that the best method for a particular bike depends on the characteristics of the original paint and the characteristics of the secondary paint. I've had some good results with acetone. In any case, the best idea is to try out the removal method on a small area of the bike that you don't usually see.

Rivnut has a good thought about the likelihood of lead in old house paint. The primary hazard in that case is dry sanding of the paint and breathing of the dust. Naturally, when using a solvent or caustic (e.g., oven cleaner), we should wear gloves (nitrile, vinyl, or latex, as appropriate). Also, paint residue left when a solvent evaporates should be handled with care so as to not create dust.
Have fun!
 

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