I have an existing kitchen cabinet that I wanted to refinish. It has an
existing wood stain and some sort of semi gloss finish that is just too
tough to remove to bare wood. I'm using a palm sander and its taken forever.
At this rate its faster to make new doors and drawer faces than try to strip
it down to bare wood. Could the existing finish and stain be removed faster
with chemical strippers? I don't think I could remove all the dark stain
embedded deep in the pores without taken my belt sander to it so Plan B is
to paint instead of refinish with a lighter stain.

If I go with plan B, paint that is, what is a good primer and tough paint
for kitchen cabinets? In either case, I like to invest in a good HVLP setup
for this and future projects - any suggestions?