Stripping back painted range cooker

[Railway Cottage]

We have an 1870s railway cottage with its original range cooker. A previous owner has painted over a speckled cream surface (enamel?) with black paint and as it's chipping I'd like to strip it back. Instructions seem to be that chemical stripper and wire Bruch are the right method but I don't want to scratch the cream surface - does anyone know if it'll work

 

[Stevers]

The speckle finish looks like it could be vitreous enamel, in which case solvent paint stripper won't touch it, but should still take the black paint off. The proper stuff (Nitromors like it used to be) is only available to the car trade usually via motor factors, but you could try Strypit or Paint Panther first to see if that's strong enough, but as always on an inconspicuous test area first. It's unlikely that one of the caustic strippers would attack the enamel (if that's what it is), and that might be something else to try. That fireplace is an nice survival worthy of some TLC!

 

[Cubist]

Fully concur with Stevers and you probably won't need the wire brush at all. Any stubborn bits of the black paint will not survive a good paint scraper used at a shallow angle to the surface. Frankly your biggest problem will be any sections where the original speckled enamel has been broken away to expose the iron/steel below.

 

[CliffordPope]

Just a caution. It might have been painted to cover up the deterioration in the enamel surface. We had an old cream enamel Rayburn, but large areas had rusted and the enamel was missing. The heatproof black paint made it look quite smart again.

If that should be the case you can get them re-enamelled. Ours was too far gone, so we ended up getting a newly reconditioned range, with our own selection of variations (lH/RH oven and flue outlet, single or double top lids, type of riddler, etc). Expensive, but an as-new stove with another 100 years of life.

But you may find your old enamel in perfect condition underneath!