Jonezee,
after you have applied the citrus liberally to the blank, let it soak a good 10 minutes then wipe it off...(make sure you wear rubber gloves too, that stuff is bad new on the skin). After you have wiped it off, you may opt to apply a second coat for those stubborn places.

After you have removed all of the old varnish, use a single edge razor blade and cut the threads along the top of the guide feet. You can keep that sharp edge away from the bamboo that way. When you get the guides off, you may want to use 0000 steel wool to smoothe out the boo and get it ready for refinishing. Many times, the old guide feet will leave a black mark where they had accumulated moisture over the years. that is especially true with older production rods as they were skimpy with the varnish many times. Most of the time, that black stain is extremely hard to remove from the boo. If you plan on going back with a different guide spacing then it presents no problem. If you plan on respacing the guides to somthing more conducive to a good fishing rod, then you may decide that you want to try bleach on the spots, rubbing it in with the 0000 wool. sometimes that will take them out but it is rare and only works when the stain is only on the surface.

What series of HI is it? They used to write the name of the series on one face of the blank, in the direction of the grip, in white. The other thing, what does the label look like. the shape and colors of the label are a giveaway to the age of the rod.