Question:

[jarandhel]

Does anyone know of a place either in the Rockville/Gaithersburg/Kensington neck of Maryland or the Arlington/Alexandria/Fairfax neck of Virginia (DC would work, but I would rather avoid going there if possible) where it would be possible to get odd little mechanical doodads and parts either free or very VERY cheap? I'm thinking like something on the level of a junkyard almost. I'm already watching Craigslist, and I keep my eye out for things left on the curb even though technically dumpster-diving is illegal in arlington, but so far it's real hit-and-miss. I can't even really say what I'm looking for, because I'm not looking for specific parts so much as parts that could be used to join other parts in certain ways. The closest analogy I have is to "junk art". The right part could be damn near anything, and I won't know till I see them in most cases. I know I can probably find stuff in home depot that would work, but that's kind of expensive and I'm leaning away from that for the moment but will revisit it if necessary.

Comments

[tlttlotd.livejournal.com]

Not down there, but I do know of a couple of good places in NOVA for stuff like that.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

Where at? :)

[tlttlotd.livejournal.com]

I usually go to the Unique Thrift Store on Gallows Road in NOVA. There are also a couple of other thrift stores along Route 50 that have provided useful things from time to time.

[rhiannasilel.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately my old source of cheap electronics closed its doors and went online - the state surplus warehouse. Here's the URL for them:

http://www.govdeals.com/eas/index.cfm

Sadly, they don't have the old 75% off deals that used to get me old monitors for under $10, but they have a lot of stuff on that site so maybe you can find something that's not an old computer part. Failing that, there might be some junk around my old job down in Gaithersburg. They occasionally would throw away old stuff. I'll also keep an eye out on the loading dock at WWF.

As a long shot, have you thought about hitting a dumpster behind Best Buy or Microcenter?