Furniture, Wood and Cabinetry Finishing - What grade of sandpaper should I use on Kitchen Cabinets

I am refinishing my kitchen cabinets. After I strip away the old stain, what grade of sandpaper do I use? I don't want to use to course of paper and ruin the finish.

Thanks, Randy

220 would be the paper to end up with.
if you notice that the sand paper is "loading up" with material, not dust,
then you did not strip it completely. you may have problems when you
apply your new finish.

You need two different grits and a few in between. The first grit is whatever cleans the wood up at reasonable speed - try something conservative but be prepared to use courser if the paper clogs or it's slow going. The first stage of sanding should temporarily "ruin" the finish. Progressive grits take down the largely scratched surface to a surface with smaller scratches... and smaller scratches with every grit change. Jumping far ahead doesn't work because the fine abrasive takes forever to cut down to the level of the previous paper's scratches. Finally, at 220 as leewaytoo says, you won't see any scratches even when stained because those left by 220 are invisible to the naked eye. At this point the wood begins to look shiney.

It's more efficient to spend a brief time with each of many grits than a long time with one or two, especially when you're sanding by hand.

Unless you're sanding plywood, you can't ruin the finish so long as you erase all your tracks this way.