Although it's often quoted as being completely wrong, I use paint stripper on my cars. In fact I use the most agressive stripper I can get, which is usually a thixotropic Methylene Chloride ("Polystrippa" in the UK) and yes, it will burn unprotected skin. It will also attack the gel coat which is why it's generally not used.
However, chemical reactions of this sort don't happen instantly and you aren't going to paint on some stripper and have a bunch of soggy glassfibre in your hands two minutes later. What I do is to use stripper in small sections, typically a panel at a time. I also watch it carefully and only apply where I know there's at least colour and primer coats to go through. As soon as it wrinkles then I scrape off with an old 1" wood chisel, which generally takes you back to almost the base primer, after which I dry sand with 60 or 80 grit production paper used dry.
It usually takes me a day per panel, maybe 2 on the rear deck because that's relatively thin and you can't push too hard. I realise this is against all conventional wisdom so YMMV, but it's something I've done for several resprays on both the Elan & Europa and providing you pay attention to what's happening, it's a very quick way to get the top layers of paint off. I wouldn't use it on almost bare fibreglass and certainly not on any body filler though, under such conditions you will get damage.
Just a thought if you can't get a gentle blasting media.
Brian
