Nice tub. It’s hard to believe it isn’t rusted under the roll bar mounts.
I haven’t heard of that method you refer to, “dipping it in a chemical” for stripping paint? If you do dip it to strip it, you better dip it to prime it, so you don’t leave any bare metal in any blind, or hard to access areas.
I sandblasted my 1969 Firebird back in the late eighties when I first bought it. That was a lot of work, messy work, but I definitely removed all the paint and rust when I sandblasted it myself. I used a chemical stripper to strip the paint first. Then I sand blasted the metal to get it clean, some refer to as “white” metal. I sandblasted a 1971 Chevy shortbed pickup about five or six years later. I blasted the frame, bed, cab, tailgate & doors. I had access to better equipment when I did that truck, so I didn’t have to chemical strip it first, but it was still a lot of work.
There are companies that specialize in this type of work now, and there are different media’s being used to strip paint as well. For example, walnut shells, soda, plastic, sand, are some of the media I am familiar with, so there are some choices out there, but I guess it depends on what you can find locally, depending on where you live.
I think the most important part of the stripping process is getting a good, high quality primer applied before the bare metal gets a chance to start rusting again. And then, If you pay someone to do it, you have to go over what was stripped and primed for missed rust...that’s the biggest problem with hiring someone else to strip it and prime it. You have to trust they will do it right. You can damage the sheet metal if your equipment has the power, it will warp or collapse it if you aren’t careful.
Having said all of that, I will hire someone to do it for me when I pull the tub off my 1985 CJ-7, in the not to distant future. It will get done much faster, saving time and effort on my part. I don’t have the energy to do this stuff like I used to.