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Hardware

Where Can You Obtain Surplus Mechanical Parts? 18

Posted by Cliff from the fiddling-around-with-surplus-tech dept.
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!
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Where can you Obtain Surplus Mechanical Parts? More

Where can you Obtain Surplus Mechanical Parts?

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  • ASU Surplus is at Price & Rio Salado, SE corner. Anything is liable to show up there. They used to only have auctions, but now it's actually a retail operation.

    There is a place called Gold Circuit but I haven't been there. There is SEX (Surplus Electronics eXchange) on 7th Ave. and Magnolia, a bit south of I17. That is mostly a recycling yard, but sometimes you can buy stuff before they get around to melting it down. The owner is inclined towards making it more of a store, I think; building some buildings to keep some of it inside. I traded some AutoCAD work (helping him visualize his buildings) for some junk. :-)
  • From caltech, east on colorado, on the right hand side. A google search turned up this:

    2176 E. Colorado Blvd.
    (626)796-2628

    It's been years since I was there.
  • maybe this place?

    http://www.weirdstuff.com/

    I remembered seeing it off www.raenterprises.com, but their site was so cheesy I didn't follow up on it. Guess I'll have to check it out.
  • Ax Man surplus stores are the coolest!! Are these only a Minneapolis MN thing? Or are they everywhere? I don't know, but damn they have some cool surplus shit.
  • (Sorry for the double post, wasn't meant to be under that thread)
    Ax Man surplus stores are the coolest!! Are these only a Minneapolis MN thing? Or are they everywhere? I don't know, but damn they have some cool surplus shit.
  • Attention citizens of Slashdot: these guys [sciplus.com] are the real deal. American Science & Surplus publish a monthly printed catalog that's chock full of truly bizarre gadgets, from motors to magnets to industrial canisters to god knows what. The beauty of the catalog is that the wry descriptive commentary recognizes how bizarre and useless most of the stuff is, unapologetically. Any self-respecting geek unfamiliar with these guys needs to hie over there pronto.


    Unaffiliated with, but deeply amused by, them.

  • I work in NYC, right around Canal street, and
    there are tons of surplus places right on Canal
    street. One place has Sparcs from time to time,
    HP boxes, etc. Plus old PC's, misc. parts, etc.
    The prices are not always great, but sometimes
    they don't know what they have and you can get a decent deal.
    *shrug*
  • The full name is "C & H Sales"; according to the phone book they're at 2176 Colorado Bl. As I recall, they're on the south side of the street, near the corner of Colorado and Craig. They used to be open more or less 9 to 5, Monday thru Friday. I haven't been there for years; now I'm getting the urge to visit!
  • does anyone know where c&h is located? I wanna go check it out tomorrow!



    Zetetic
    Seeking; proceeding by inquiry.

    Elench
    A specious but fallacious argument; a sophism.
  • If you'll mail me names, addresses, phone numbers, websites, contact names, specialties and directions on how to get there I'll put them up on a web site (http://acme.ecn.purdue.edu) by country and state. That would help people build cheap clusters too!

    mail to: moffett@acme.ecn.purdue.edu

  • Does anyone know of a good stuff store in the Dallas Texas area?
  • Electronics Goldmine [goldmine-elec.com], despite the name, always seems to have a variety of stuff in their catalogs. They don't have the "one of a kind" stuff, but they have lots of odd little things that there aren't enought for most stores to carry...
  • There is just such a store in Dayton, OH. It's called Mendleson's Electronics Co. They also go by MECI. The retail store is two big warehouse floors open to the public. It is a mix of electrical, electronic, store and restaurant fixtures, office furniture, and everything else. You WILL spend all day if you go there.

    They also have an online store at http://www.meci.com/ [meci.com].

    Josh
  • Theres a place in Cupertino, CA (really close to where the poster is located) called "Wierd Stuff" or maybe it's "Crazy Stuff." Anyway, it's something like that. The place sells all sorts of used and surplus computer and mechanical-industrial equipment. Sorry, I don't have an address or phone number, and a quick search didn't turn anything up. The place is located just outside the entrance to AMD's headquarters. (within an eighth of a mile or so) That should be all you need to find it. Good Luck!!
  • Ax Man is a Minneapolis/St Paul business. I'm not aware of a nationwide franchised chain of surplus/junk stores. Incidentally, in the Twin Cities area at Dexis [dexis.com] you can find electronics-oriented surplus -- check the shelves in the back room.
  • Here in Phoenix, Arizona - is a place called Apache Reclamation and Electronics, on 3rd Ave and Apache (1 block north of the I-10). They also aparrently have a couple of other stores - one I think is in Denver, another in Ohio. A blue building with a large yard, they carry damn near everything (there is still an unclaimed backhoe out back, as well as a few electron microscopes). I have even seen bottles with some fluid in them, labeled as a biohazard (scary shit!). Mostly, though, they cary a ton of electronic and mechanical parts (they have a great vacuum tube room) - spools of electrical cable, large motors (when I mean large, I MEAN LARGE - motors that require forklifts to move - some brand-new surplus, as well!). Too much to describe.

    For an even more interesting place, there is a warehouse called Equipment Exchange, on roughly 3rd street and Lincoln, behind BOB - lots of cool stuff to look at, mostly large chip/electronics fab equipment (great microscopes, large industrial robots and work envelopes, large conveyor ovens, etc). Most stuff is too big to move comfortably, but the downstairs basement area is interesting...

    For used computer equipment, Electronic Materials and Computers, on roughly 34 Ave and Indian School Road (look em up in the phone book for more info, and to get directions), have an OK selection of old stuff - but they are only open during the week, and only until 4pm (last I checked).

    There is also a great scrap metal supplier on approximately 40th street and Van Buren (or Washington - can't remember - same street as Phoenix Greyhound Park). Lots of large metal stuff - brass, aluminum, steel, copper - you name it, they have it!

    Oh - one other place (not in Phoenix) - All Electronics (www.allelectronics.com) - they are based in Van Nuys and LA. Their site has online-ordering, though - great place to get quite a good selection of stuff, and the online catalog is easy to use.

    Those are the fun places I know of in the Phoenix area - if anyone knows of others, please post a reply under this thread - I would love to know of others!

    I support the EFF [eff.org] - do you?
  • I keep running into you at the strangest places/times - maybe it is only a matter of time before a RL meeting takes place.

    Anyhow, thanks for the links - maybe I'll check them out sometime soon (maybe this weekend, if I can swing it)...

    Thanks again!

    I support the EFF [eff.org] - do you?

  • Utah has a place (Score:3)

    by h2odragon ( 6908 ) on Saturday November 11, 2000 @04:00PM (#629829) Homepage
    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.

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