My experience with CitriStrip has been that on the parts of the tube where it's going to work it works well enough that I could probably wipe most of the paint away with a paper towel.



It's super simple for paint over chrome, such is in the example above. For paint that's well bonded to the surface, I find that pre-sanding before applying the stripper helps. For areas where the paint doesn't cooperate as well as in the pic above, the stripper still softens it substantially so that I can get most of it off with a putty knife (which is what I actually use for the easy spots too). This generally gets me 90% of the way to the finish line. For the main tubes, a belt sander strip makes for easy work. For the crevices I start with a wire brush attachment on a drill. If I want to be super thorough, a smaller wire brush on a Dremel tool will clean up the smallest of spaces.

That said, the wire brush step is very messy and your point about flying stripper at this point is well taken. It's probably mostly gone by then with my typical technique, but it's definitely something I'll pay attention to next time.