Western Electric Black Bells

[Kmoody]

How can I remove black paint to get the bells back to brass?

[RDPipes]

Cover them well with stripper and place them in a zip lock baggie over night.
Next day fill the baggie with the gongs inside with sawdust and remove and rinse
with paint thinner/Mineral spirits and they should be ready to polish. The baggie is to
keep the stripper moist and the sawdust is to absorb the stripper and paint mixture to
make it easy to clean up and toss.  Other then that you could lightly sand the paint and
use a 3/4hp 3400 rpm buffer with Tripoli to buff the paint off and polish them. 

[Kmoody]

Thank You.

[HarrySmith]

Some, if not all, the black painted gongs I have seen were steel, not brass. Check with a magnet first.

[RDPipes]

Some, if not all, the black painted gongs I have seen were steel, not brass. Check with a magnet first.

Ran across several brass sets originally painted black in the steel subset boxes. 

[poplar1]

WE302s had steel gongs painted black circa 1944-45 and unpainted steel gongs ca. late 1951-1952.

I know of no U.S. made brass gongs that were issued in polished brass. They were always nickel-plated or painted black
EDIT: I was referring to EXTERNALLY MOUNTED gongs.

[countryman]

Brass will tarnish after some time without a protective coating. I found tarnished brass bells in my 2/49 WE 302, the sound is clearly superior to steel bells.

[tubaman]

...
I know of no U.S. made brass gongs that were issued in polished brass. They were always nickel-plated or painted black
EDIT: I was referring to EXTERNALLY MOUNTED gongs.

Same with the GPO here in the UK, no brass parts would be on view externally.
If the bells were originally painted black then I'd either leave them alone or repaint if necessary.