Where can I buy bearings?

Looking for a store where i can find ball bearing with races for a spinny laser project im working on… I know i can buy them online, but i guess im old fashioned and like to see stuff before i buy it.

Struck out at Lowe’s, anyone know where to go?

Local industrial supply, but many won’t sell to consumers or in small quantities.

Hobby stores (Radio Control cars/trucks) but they will have very limited selection and be massively over-priced. They’re not really “consumables”…

Motorcycle parts but I doubt you need anything as big or durable (expensive) as what they would sell.

Small, “original” hardware stores (Ace, True Value) might have some old stock kicking around. Also the ones that service small engines (Stihl dealers, for example.) Worth calling.

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Your best bet for small quantities of all sorts of things like this is McMaster/Carr

The only caveat is that they don’t pre quote shipping. It is normally very reasonable but if you order something long you need to request a shipping quote. Oh, and they usually don’t mind cutting rods and stuff down for you.
I’m super lucky in that they have a warehouse in ATL so I normally get very fast delivery without any special handling.

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Very thoughtful replies fron the both of you, thanks!

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Oh, and one more thing. If you have a store that sells inline skates or skateboards they normally have replacement bearings.

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I figured those would be too big for what im thinking, but worth keeping in mind

If size is not critical for you, what i like to do because i also have rc cars is buy these kits and adapt my designs to receive them.

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If you are near Orlando, Skycraft is one of the more amazing places, if not there is https://skycraftsurplus.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Bearings

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The thing about bearings is that they have very tightly controlled sizes and objective quality ratings. Broadly speaking this means that you don’t really need to see them in person, an abec 9 bearing is an abec 9 bearing regardless of where you get it.

All that’s left is to decide what size you want and you should know pretty much exactly what you’re getting.

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