Cowells lathe paintwork

After months of research, thinking, planning & general dilly-dallying, I've finally plundered my piggy-bank and splashed out on a used Cowells lathe.

Whilst there doesn't appear to be any problem with play, excessive backlash etc on the mechanical side of things and everything turns as I'd expect it to, cosmetically it could be better, as the base as a number of chips in the paintwork. My question is two-fold :-

1) I realise a quick phone call would give me the answer, but does anyone know if paint to match the original is available from Cowells?

2) Rather than just touch up the paintwork, ideally I'd like to remove the base, strip it back to bare metal and paint afresh. How easy would it be to strip the old paint entirely? The last thing I want to do is devalue my new toy investment.

Brian

Brian, you've reminded me I need to post up some long overdue pic's of my Cowells which I mentioned on the site some months ago,

I stripped mine back easy enough, just used a very sharp (defunct) woodworking chisel which shaved it all off a treat, then used good quality 180 grit paper and thinners to clean it up (3M's production discs), it was easier than sanding off all the edges of the chips and dings then risking the solvents in the new paint lifting the old,

For paint, I just used a rattle can of acrylic car paint of a similar colour, purists might have a wail over that, but it looks better than it did, and unless anyone seeing it is an anal Cowells concours judge carrying around colour chits or has a photographic memory of factory colours, I can't see it matters much, it looks better than it did when it was covered in crap and chipped paint, so I've probably enhanced its value, not that it matters anyway, I won't be selling it any time soon,

I certainly wouldn't pay a premium for factory paint, but each to their own.

John.