I'm kinda new at this myself and here's what I've experienced.
First off, I had originally intended to do the full stripping routine on all assemblies, the reason being that since I have no prior metalworking history I felt it would guard against accumulating nicks and dings due to the inevitable excessive handling.
As it turns out, the learning curve has been steeper than I anticipated, and starting with the second wing I now immediately remove the vinyl film as the first step of the process. My confidence level has become sufficient that I feel the extra protection is superfluous and unnecessarily time consuming. Each builder has to decide what his/her comfort level is.
The stripping operation is fairly straightforward. The previous advice about softening the soldering iron tip is absolutely critical. Utterly smooth and blunt is paramount. A run of the shop 40-50W iron will do.
I don't do such a great job at freehanding straight lines, so I went with a straightedge (neatnik syndrome). Therein lies a hidden trick. I watched a video of the stripping being done where the builder used a metal straightedge, and was appalled at how agonizingly slow it went. The metal was sucking almost all the heat out of the iron tip. I went to a hobby/craft store and bought a sheet of 1/64 birch ply veneer for a few bucks, cut a 3/4" wide strip out of it, drilled a cleco hole in one end, and went to town. Works great.
The safety tip for using it is always to keep your positioning hand away from the iron's immediate proximity in case it hops up on top of the straightedge. It never happened to me but certainly could have.
Lastly, do not exert any more pressure than is just adequate to keep the iron against the part. It's the heat the does the work. The result you see as you move the iron along will tell you how fast to go. The goal is as fast as possible without leaving any part of the line unmelted. You will quickly learn what it should look like.
You will no doubt notice where strips intersect there appears to be a scratch in the Alclad surface made by the iron. Odds are it only looks like a scratch, but is instead a very thin thread of melted vinyl which rubs right off.
End of essay...happy building.