What is the best way to strip cabinets down to bare wood?

OH, absolutely Citristrip! One thick coat can remove as many as 7 coats of old paint, then a final coat can suck the stain right out of the wood. I'm doing antique doors and LOVE this stuff. No space suit, no flesh eating chemicals, neutralizing with water, and only 220 sanding to smooth the grain. LOVE it. (No metal scrapers, either. It bubbles paint out of the detail!)

Paint Stripper or Blow Torch.........

I recommend CitriStrip

Citri stripper . It doesn't have that caustic smell that you get with the other strippers. The plus is that you can actually leave it on for 24 hours before you clean off.

I have to tell you, I do this in front of the TV in my pajamas. The most difficult thing is leaving the alone so the Citristrip can do its job. I even forgot a set of doors and about a month later noticed. The Citristrip had dried in its plastic, of course, but the darned stuff kept working and I used a plastic scraper to scrape off the dust the paint had become.

Here's how I do it with plastic bags. http://eveningsfall-on-queenanne.blogspot.com/