Best method to remove thick varnish from old wooden furniture?

I got a number of old solid wood furniture from the flea market that I want to restore. My goal is to expose the pure wood again. The furniture has been painted over several times with thick varnish. Question: How can I remove the old layers of varnish the fastest? I tried sanding, but that is very tedious. Does paint stripping work better? What do you think of these heat guns, as they are supposed to be able to remove old varnish as well?

It is best to take the valuable pieces to a professional paint stripper. The paints can be toxic, especially nitrocellulose paints, which release toxic gases at higher temperatures (hot air blower). And you cannot tell just by looking which type of paint was used back then. If you strip paint yourself, you need to figure out how to dispose of the stripper/paint paste. When stripping paint as a hobby, you will not completely remove all paint spots, so you have to follow up with wire brushes and sandpapers (very time-consuming). If you are experienced with this method of paint removal and know what to do, it is enjoyable and the result is something to be proud of. If you have little experience with it, this work can be very frustrating.

Ok, this is not supposed to turn into work ;-) In this case, it's probably better if I leave the furniture to professionals, I will then try my hand at unpainted pieces.

Yes, the professional is really the best solution... I once bought flea market furniture to redesign myself and initially messed it up quite a bit because I wanted to do everything myself but didn't really know how... the stripper was still able to save the furniture, but I could have saved myself a lot of stress and hassle from the start ;)

I also have some old pieces of furniture. These were also coated with a lot of varnish. At first, I tried it myself with paint stripper, sandpaper, and a wire brush. That is really a centuries-long task. Now I came across this thread and have now hired a company for it. Yesterday I picked up the stripped furniture. I have to say, simply great.

I have already done that too. But I refrained from using a [paint stripper], that is too much chemistry for me. I used my sanding machine and it worked well. The corners and edges simply with sandpaper.

It took a bit of time, but the result is great.