Where Can You Obtain Surplus Mechanical Parts?

Brian Craft asks: "When I was in Pasadena all the nerds with an inclination toward building Electronic-Things-That-Move would go to this place called C&H, on Colorado Blvd. It was a wacky surplus store where you could buy everything from worm gears, to stepper motors, pulleys, power supplies, 20 turn pots, and used passenger jet windows (no joke!), for very, very little money. I'm now up north, a bit south of the Bay, and I haven't found anyplace as cool as C&H. There seem to be computer and electronic surplus stores on every corner. But where do you go when you need to browse piles of gears to find one that fits the worm gear on your stepper motor? When you need small bearings, or pulleys, or solenoids? Or just the sight of lots and lots of really cool mechanical stuff, to inspire your next project?" Are there any cool surplus stores in your area or online? If so, share them here!

Comments

Utah has a place

[h2odragon]

Smith & Edwards surplus in Ogden (not far from Salt Lake); mostly larger military and medical surplus, but there's literally acres of stuff to poke through and I wouldn't be suprised to find anything at all there. The main yard has got to be the better part of a square mile, pretty much evenly piled to a depth of 10 foot or better. The guy that owns the place buys missle silos and such.

My last truckload from them included everything from film projectors, a projection TV, a pair of gas chromatographs, various smaller mechanical and electric things (strip chart recorders, etc). I ran out of truck long before I ran out of stuff I wanted.