Could you elaborate on why not use Citrustrip? We have used it in the past and would like to know why it is not a good idea (other than my house smells like bad orange candy for a week).
Yer damn _right_, the place smells like orange candy for a week. And after you scrape the Citrustip off, you have to use this thick, oily, cleanup agent to "neutralize" the stripper. I tried it on a small chunk of trim-- and the only way to describe the overwhelming stench was to imagine drowning Florida in kerosene. And it didn't strip the paint very well, either. Citrustrip was probably the single worst stripper I've ever used.
It's my guess that people see the "citrus" and figure it's some naturally-based thing that won't give'em cancer. But the orange smell is there to mask the smell of NMP, the stripping agent. (Sort of like "masking" a forest with Napalm.) There are other NMP strippers which use citrus smells to mask the odor (like Parks, or Woodfinisher's Pride), but none of those are anywhere near as noxious as Citrustip. And they don't require a cleanup oil, either: you can use denatured alcohol to clean those up very easily.
My general stripping routine goes like this:
Peel-Away 6, for the upper layers, mostly latex paints
Methylene Chloride for lower layers, like oils and leads, and using brass-bristle brushes and dental picks for the detail cleanup
Wash with denatured alcohol, and sand if needed.
And as others have pointed out, wear neoprene gloves, wear masks, protect your eyes, and keep fresh air coming in from outside.
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