I've been buying trashed plugs to take apart to see how they were built and also to rebuild. I tried paint striper and thats okay. Sanding with a sanding block seems to be good and you get a nice surface. The striper leaves a mix of striper and paint that hardens so you have to sand anyway.
Winch on the other site is famous for useing fire, a torch, to remove old paint. I guess if you have good ventalation and wear a respirator it would be okay because I'd be afraid of the lead and other stuff coming off the burning paint.
I've resealed with BLO/turp and painted like a new plug. A couple of my favorites were old Gibbs 2 3/4 oz pencils. They don't sit in the water the same way they did when they were bought used, but they caught fish.
Gone fishin - I think when you redo a plug, you seal, paint and finish coat and the weighting of the plug changes so you get different action. Like I said, the Gibbs were different and walked differently but still caught. I've got a few giant pikies that I am going to start rebuilding soon
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