The finished product
It really depends on what you want the finished product to look like.
You can just remove all the loose paint, rust and repair any other damaged surface, prep and paint over the top. This will be fine but be under no illusions that this will not be as good as stripping to bare metal and repainting with quality paints or better still powder coating.
Having done a frame back to bare metal with paint stripper, rotary wire brushes, sanders and hand sanding. It took a long, long time and if given the a choice again I would get it sand blasted. Blocking off/packing/closing up the bearings is not that hard. If worst comes to worse and you do damage a bearing replacing a bearing at this stage (stripped down bike) is not a big deal in terms of what you will do from there.
It all depends on how long you have and what you want the finished product to look like/quality of finish.
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