Painting - Preparation for painting plastic items

Any good advice about how to remove old paint from plastic items around the house and how to prepare the plastic for repainting?

Welcome to the forums

Plastic doesn't always accept paint well but it can be painted.
What type of plastic items are you wanting to paint?
Is there a reason you need to remove all the old paint first?

Well, one of the items is a lamp shade that has a chrome-like finish that is rubbed-off in places and even is chipped here and there. It really looks like it needs to come off to be smooth enough for the new finish to look nice.

I don't believe I have ever painted any lamp shades. Can the chipped area be sanded down or filled [maybe with spackling]

As long as the problem areas are taken care of and the surface is clean, it should be ok to paint without removing the old finish. I would think using one of the new 'for plastic' spray cans would be the best coating to use.

You can use fumeless oven cleaner to remove paint from plastic (I had used Easy-Off before) but you need to keep an eye on it or it will blister the surface.

If you have a chrome surface, you're probably out of luck. The process to make plastic "chromed" is evaporating aluminum onto the plastic and it is a very strong chemical bond.

In that case, best thing to do would be to sand it and then buy a "chrome" spray paint and apply several light coats.

Check the recycle stamp (usually on the back or a hidden surface) and see what type of plastic you have. Generally Styrene and Polycarbonate are the most likely to take paint and others like Poly ethalyne (my current project) won't take paint without a fight.