Buy a molding/detail pull-scraper kit. It should have the scraper shapes you need or find one with an all-purpose tear drop blade.

Clover, this is one of my future projects as well! There are 2 well regarded books about this, one is Working Windows (I think) and I got it used on Amazon. For $11? I can't remember. The other is from John Leeke. I haven't bought any of his 'books' yet, but I plan to. His site has a forum with lots of great info. I plan to build the steam box to do my windows.

Here is a link that might be useful: Historic Home Works

We are remodeling our 1892 house. I am restoring all the double-hung windows, interior trim and doors and kitchen cabinets. I just bought an infrared paint stripper that I saw used during a window restoration workshop. It is pricey, $400, however compared to the cost of new windows, it is a bargain. It uses no chemicals, does not create lead paint dust, and the heat reaches only 400F so burning the wood is less likely than a hand heat gun. It is very fast. He also used a 5-in-one tool for putty and a scraper with replaceable blade to scrape the paint after it had softened under the heat tool. HTH

We have had much success with Multi-Strip, which you can find at paint stores. It's pricey, but works. Goes on like goop and has an awful smell but is as environmentally safe as you can get and won't cause you to run out of the house from the fumes. Just protect your floors and areas you DONT want to remove paint or stain from, as it will eat through stuff. Use layers of plastic and fold it in as you go to keep the stuff from getting on your shoes, arms, etc.

Hardware stores sell little copper bristled stripping brushes (they look like toothbrushes)...also dental picks. Those two items (along with liquid stripper) made getting the paint off of my muntins fairly easy.

Thank you all so very much for your suggestions! I think I will splurge and buy the infrared paint stripper. And the 5 in 1 tool and copper stripping brushes sound like a great idea.

On another note, I just finished restoring all my 1940's upper and lower kitchen cabinets. It was fairly easy because I didn't have to deal with stripping paint. The paint on them was an off white, so I prime spotted in the chipped paint sections, and then painted over them. Actually, the whole process was quite elaborate with sanding in between coats putting a nice old fashioned beeswax over them. They literally feel like satin when you touch them. I used simulated milk paint (Olde Century), and it is very thick and you have to work quick because being latex, it dries quickly.

I will have to post pictures when I put it all together. I am, however, stripping the paint off on the outside of the cabinet "boxes". So far so good. It came off with just a scraper! The wood underneath is in good condition and once I got started I couldn't stop because I was so curious to see what the wood underneath looked like. But, since I painted the cabinet doors, I will be painting the boxes too. I have a tiny kitchen and keeping the cabinets wood color would be too dark for the room.

The only thing I am having professionally done is having the 8 drawers over the lower cabinets replaced. The gunk and stench was too much. I let them air out for over a year, and to no avail, it still smells horrible. Plus, I couldn't for the life of me get the built up gunk of almost 70 years off of them.

I had a carpenter come over yesterday to measure and will call me this week with a price.

Like I said, I'm so grateful to have all the tips and help from all of you. When it is all put together, I will certainly post pics!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Can't wait to see the kitchen pic clover! My cabinets have amazing layers of grease and gunk built up which I discovered I could deal with by sanding. I used this as an excuse to buy myself an expensive random orbit sander for my birthday!