Painting - Stripping Old Paint

My house is about 75 years old and I am planning on repainting my kitchen cabinets. A friend, who is a skilled woodworker but not a painter, suggested stripping the old paint. On one of the cabinets doors which I am going to replace I experimented with both a chemical stripper and a heat gun. There appears to be about six layers of old paint. For the most part the tops few layers crack & peel quite easily. The first couple of layers seem to be a differenbt type of paint and get very googy, sticky and hard to remove. Both methods are quite tedious but the heat gun seems to work. How important is it to stripp off this old paint? What are the pros & cons of chemical vs heat gun? Why do the older layer of paint seem to react so differently to the stripping process than the new layers?

Thanks for helping

Be careful with the old paint as it probably contains lead. While its a good idea to strip that many layers off, its not necessary.

You may want to look for a stripper that will come off in a sheet, very little scraping involved. Sorry, but the name escapes me now.

I recently bought a 1947 house with the original kitchen cabinets still in place. The paint was bubbled and cracked not to mention at least 6 different colors of paint. We stripped the paint off and repainted them white. It ended up looking fabulous. It was a great deal of work but well worth it in the end. Much cheaper and better quality than new cabinets and definitely a more charming style. We didn't strip the insides of the cabinets (got lazy) and you can definitely see a difference with the outside.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by acgrindle:
I recently bought a 1947 house with the original kitchen cabinets still in place. The paint was bubbled and cracked not to mention at least 6 different colors of paint. We stripped the paint off and repainted them white. It ended up looking fabulous. It was a great deal of work but well worth it in the end. Much cheaper and better quality than new cabinets and definitely a more charming style. We didn't strip the insides of the cabinets (got lazy) and you can definitely see a difference with the outside. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I do realize this is going to be a lot of work and I'm hoping for just the results you descibed. I really prefer to restore original work, rather than replace it. Did you use a chemical stripper or a heat gun? The heat gun really seems easier to me.

Thanks

PS - I can't even imagine trying to do the insides of the cabinets!

If you want to remove multiple layers of paint either exterior or interior and you are repaintingthe surface try PEEL AWAY I for doiung the job. It is the safest method for removing lead based paint. If you are working on interior wood that you are looking to re finish natural suggest you use PEEL AWAY 7 which will do the job for you