Paint Removal?

[SARGE]

I have a question about paint removal. Has anyone removed paint from the sharkskin grips of a sword grip? Dried sharkskin (or rayskin) wrapped on sword grips have a wooden form underneath so one cannot dip a sword hilt into anything as the wood would swell and crack the sharkskin wrap. So how do we remove unwanted paint from a hard pebbled sharkskin grip without damaging it?

 

I have successfully removed paint from hard surfaces such as metal with abrasion, polish, and stripper but I don't think any of these things would work on sharkskin which has an irregular pebbled organic (i.e. hardened hide) surface. I am open to ideas.

 

I am thinking about turpentine or amonia. Any drawbacks or concerns here?