Start with coarse 80-grit sandpaper in a manual hand sander or power sander. Using enough pressure to remove the paint but not so much that it damages the wood. Move to medium 150-grit abrasive and finish with fine 220-grit, brushing away dust from the surface each time you change paper.
Similarly, do I need to strip paint before sanding?
It’s almost always better to strip than to sand. To begin with, except in cases where the old finish is flaking off, it’s a lot more work to sand than to strip using a paint-and-varnish remover. … Stripping is messy, which is probably the reason many people chose to sand instead.
Beside this, when should I sand and strip paint? stripping paint: Which method is better? Sanding is fine if you’re planning to paint over the surface anyway. In this instance, the goal of sanding isn’t to remove every last speck of paint; it’s just to get the surface scuffed up enough that new paint will adhere to it.