Painting prep problem

[buildersteve]

The wife thought it would be nice to have everything white. Walls, ceilings, woodwork, the lot.
I've done most of it and now I've got to the stairs. Didn't fancy painting 150 staircase spindles and the bottom rail needed to be raised 10mm on the landing so it ended up higher than the proposed landing floor covering. So I've bought new spindles and sorted the rail.

The thing is, Those banisters have been subjected to years of wax polish, not to mention human traffic. The colour is by the Ronseal mahogany stain/varnish.
My question is, what will remove all the wax polish? I've tried the de-greaser stuff but it doesn't touch it but I don't really want to stink the place out using thinners. Meths maybe? Thanks. S

 

[Wayners]

Clean. mechanical sand. Shellac primer. Paint. Really needs spraying though as I could not not face hand painting that. Some take apart and send to be dipped.

 

[buildersteve]

Wayners. Thanks for the input. There use to be a firm in Rochester that did that dipping but long gone now. Plus it would be near impossible to take it all to bits. Spraying is out as well. I bet that Shellac stuff has a pong to it but I'll give it a try if I can find it. So far, the only stuff that gets near to getting it of has been isopropinal but its a bit dangerous using that! Takes the stain off as well though.