Over the years I've tried many different methods. I used to boil the parts in Tide then scrape with a brush and boil again and scrape again until cleaned of old paint. This did not work at all on repainted items with newer paints especially automobile paint. It also remove NO rust. So the rust had to be hand sanded and worked with a moto tool. I also used chemical strippers which is essentially the same as boiling but without the boiling. Of course you have the hazzard of working with chemicals and they stink and burn. Works faster but... I then discovered sand blasting. You only need a portable unit with a decent compressor and clean filtered sand, with an outdoor area in which to work and let the sand fly. Very fast, very efficient, removes all the rust too, but is dirty. I then graduated to a blasting cabinet. These can be purchased for around $100 for a cheap model. This affords the reuse of the media and easy changing of the media. Mainly I stuck with medium grit glass beads. Very efficient, very clean, removes paint and rust and brings a bright aircraft aluminum shine to everything. This is the best method I have found.
It is not expensive. You need an air compressor. I use a carpenters nailer compressor. It runs a lot but I can get the job done with the breaks in between. My cabinet is a cheap $100 job I got on E-Bay. It does the job. You can get glass bead in 80 pound bags for around $35. So if you have a compressor all you need is about $150 more and your set.
