Author Topic: Old magnetic stud finders  (Read 14563 times)

Offline coolmercury

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Old magnetic stud finders
« on: October 25, 2018, 03:21:11 PM »
Found these while looking for something else.  From the left, Lawrence Bros, Ullman, Dresden mfg co., Stanley and another Stanley in the original package. Do they work, well yes, if you have a lot of patience.

Offline bonneyman

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #1 on: October 25, 2018, 03:48:06 PM »
I have one like your Stanely examples. But I thought they only worked on metal-stud walls? Unless you were lucky enough to find a nail?

Offline coolmercury

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #2 on: October 25, 2018, 05:10:58 PM »
Oh you-all of little faith, of course you need to find a nail/screw.  Remember back in the dark ages there were no metal studs.

Offline DeadNutz

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #3 on: October 25, 2018, 06:29:02 PM »
Those were kind of tough to use if you had a metal lath and plaster house.

Offline slip knot

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #4 on: October 25, 2018, 07:55:24 PM »
If your wall mounting something in lath and plaster do you need to find a stud?

Offline J.A.F.E.

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #5 on: October 25, 2018, 08:18:38 PM »
If your wall mounting something in lath and plaster do you need to find a stud?

Depends on how much it weighs and the loads it puts on the wall. And how much you don't want to patch a huge hole in the wall from something ripping out.

Seriously though I don't trust old plaster very much. Around here it tends to be very brittle and breaks out pretty readily. I wouldn't normally trust anything more than a framed picture weighing five maybe ten pounds.

For finding studs I usually use a rare earth magnet to find the drywall screws or nails and it works really well. I took the servo magnet out of an old disk drive and use that or I have a fancy store bought one. I'll post up some pix later.
People who confuse etymology and entomology bug me in ways I can’t put into words.

Offline slip knot

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2018, 09:09:28 PM »
what limited exposure I've had to lath and plaster, it seems you could hang an 18wheeler on the wall. that crap was stout.


I'll have to try the disc drive magnets to find studs. I haven't seen that one yet.


I've got a couple of the electronic stud finders and they're crap. Kinda like using a Ouija board on the wall.

Offline J.A.F.E.

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2018, 10:05:26 PM »
... Kinda like using a Ouija board on the wall.

 :D :D :D That is the truth. Well put.

Here are some pix as promised. The plastic one on the left has two small rare earth disk magnets. The odd little piece on the right is the magnet from a disk drive servo for the read/write heads. The plastic one cost about 15 and it works quite well I use it a fair amount. The drive servo magnet was free unless you count the cost of the drive but I was scrapping it anyway.



Depending on how good your screen is you may be able to just make out the marks where the magnets are.



The two cylinders are magnets and just slightly smaller in diameter than the magnets in the stud finder. The cylinder magnets are from the trigger for a door alarm but they do not make very good stud finders just using them to show where the business is.



The read/write heads off a disk drive. The coil works against the magnet to move the heads. The magnet is surprisingly strong considering it's modest size but even if there is only a post from a broken screw it will find it.




A good place to but rare earth magnets is Magcraft I use quite a few of them for various projects. They are pretty reasonable too - I think this tube cost about 11 or 12

People who confuse etymology and entomology bug me in ways I can’t put into words.

Offline strik9

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2018, 10:28:22 PM »
I have had lots of fun in old houses with the lath and plaster.  In one house if a part broke off it was all ready to drop.
    We just finished the job and did drywall instead of patching.  He hated old historic homes after that one.

  My current home has no studs at all in walls.    A temp wall  has exposed steel studs.  I just drill anywhere and sink a wall anchor.

Offline DeadNutz

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #9 on: October 25, 2018, 10:48:14 PM »
Our house in SoCal had lath and plaster done in 1930 and the plaster crumbled very easily. To repair a small nail hole ended up a patch about the size of a quarter. The living room ceiling sagged in one spot and I was very careful cleaning it. It would of sucked trying to match the cove of the ceiling with drywall. My brother's house a couple miles away was even older and one day a huge hunk of plaster fell off the ceiling and just missed his wife who was sitting in a chair holding the baby. My brother ripping the ceiling out and I helped put the drywall up and that was no fun.

Offline J.A.F.E.

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2018, 01:00:50 AM »
The stud finder and disk drive magnet stuck to the wall. No Ouija board required.







Note - no drywall was harmed in producing this image.
People who confuse etymology and entomology bug me in ways I can’t put into words.

Offline bonneyman

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2018, 09:56:20 AM »
I think they could've picked a better name than "Stud Buddy". Sounds like it goes with that "Save-a-Stud" tool someone posted last week.

I didn't know studs needed buddies or saving!  :))

Offline DeadNutz

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2018, 10:08:25 AM »
Great idea on the magnets and I have some strong ones to try.

Offline J.A.F.E.

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2018, 01:21:48 PM »
Stud Buddy is a rather unfortunate name.

DeadNutz I think you'll find it works quite well. At least I like it.
People who confuse etymology and entomology bug me in ways I can’t put into words.

Offline slip knot

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2018, 04:42:49 PM »
Cool, thanks for the demonstrations. I've used the hard drive magnets to hold the dog door up on my shop. they are damned stout.

Offline J.A.F.E.

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #15 on: October 26, 2018, 05:44:35 PM »
Just as an offtopic aside removing the disks from a hard drive effectively destroys the data. One surface has a servo track and the data tracks on the remaining surfaces are referenced to that servo track. It's possible someone could try and manually align the data tracks to a different servo track but would be very labor intensive.

For the vigilant you could also run the magnet over the surface or bend the disk - even a slight amount will render it useless. Or for tin foil hat crowd you could CIA it and drill holes in the disk or scrape the coating off the disk.
People who confuse etymology and entomology bug me in ways I can’t put into words.

Offline slip knot

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #16 on: October 26, 2018, 08:16:48 PM »
From what I've been told just exposing the disc to the atmosphere pretty much ruins it.


 But they are shiny. ;)

Offline J.A.F.E.

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #17 on: October 26, 2018, 08:42:13 PM »
The heads fly very close to the disk surface. Dust or even a fingerprint can crash the heads to the disk so opening them can cause a head crash from dust contamination. There is a special landing zone on the platter for when the disk is powered down other than that contact between the heads and platter is pretty much catastrophic.
People who confuse etymology and entomology bug me in ways I can’t put into words.

Offline strik9

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Re: Old magnetic stud finders
« Reply #18 on: October 29, 2018, 10:46:40 PM »
I would be able to use a stud finder as a rebar finder more.

   Let me know where NOT to drill for a wall anchor.  So I may have to go hunting for one...  lol!

   The only one ever spotted was at HD so far.  It was 3 weeks pay.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2018, 10:48:41 PM by strik9 »