"Ignoramus821" wrote in message
...

All regular ball bearings are very cheap nowadays and even cheap ones
are well enough made for miscellaneous use. Enormous progress in
making them cheaply and industrially. No need to hoard bearings, just
buy them as you need them cheaply.

i


In Yuma, Az there is one major bearing reseller that I am aware of and the
few times I have priced anything from them they seemed to think this was
still the 1970s where I had the choice of buying from them or doing without.
Other than that there are the usual hardware store bin bearings which are
typically only small sheet metal ball bearings suitable for movement with
light loads. There are a couple other sources, but they all say, "we can
get it for you." Now I am not talking about a particular spec bearing to
repair an old machine. For those I always get a high quality spec bearing
to match the old one, and often I have to check multiple sources to find
somebody who has it or has a good quality crossover. They are almost never
cheap.

In this case its more along the lines of deciding I want to build something.
Usually in the evening or on the weekend when I have shut down production in
the shop. Sure I can't have everything, but I can have a lot. Skate
bearings are pretty amazing. 4 of them can handle a thousand pounds rolling
load for a while, and a few hundred indefinitely with a quality grease.
When you think about it that's insanely good for such a tiny little bearing.
Put some preload on them and you can even make a light duty spindle out of
them (I have) that's perfect for cross drilling or cross tapping on the
lathe. I don't know how long they will last as my first one shows no signs
of wear yet. I was just looking for a couple larger bearings I could spend
a couple hundred bucks on and have a bunch of them in the project bearings
drawer on my back assembly bench for those weekend inspiration projects.