Stripping off the old layers of paint is like turning the pages of a history book. Light grey on yellow, on dark grey/blue, then original factory drab green. I had been tossing up sending everything down to get sand blasted/soda blasted but I thought I should give paint stripper a go. The results aren't too bad. I bought a good quality paint stripper which really helps, it took a few applications, washing off with water in between but it came up ok. The bulkhead has some surface rust which is going to take some work to clean.
The front guards are really straight but they have so much paint on them. One of the previous owners used some bog to smooth out some of the ripples in the panels which makes it even harder to get the paint off.