Been there and done that. There are a couple of easier ways, if there really is one, to strip the coating off.
I used aircraft stripper. Let it soak and scraped it off with a putty knife. I also used a heat gun in some area's, got it hot and also used the putty knife to scrape it off.
Once most of everything was off or pretty thin, I used an air grinder with a wire wheel to take it down to the bare metal.
Know exactly what it means to look like a coal miner after a session doing it :-)
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