Any recommendations for something to locate studs behind plasterboard? The combined stud/pipe/cable finders seem to get mixed reviews.
And I know about drilling a hole and using a coat-hanger but they have only just finished the plastering.
Andrew
Yes, I'd give mine (a Bosch) a mixed review.
Don't discount how well a dozen strong magnets to find the screws works.
Had good results with a Zircon - think it was this one:
Tried all kind of tapping, even with a tuning app on my phone, to no result. The Zircon found the stud in seconds.
Theo
Yes and if you do get those magnets for goodness sake never ever let them clip together, you will never get them apart. Brian
The trick with these devices is the design of the coil. Some are too focussed and its like a needle in a haystack. I wish I could remember one a friend showed me, it had two distinct modes, one which located the general area, and another obviously using a smaller coil that could locate it from there. They are, as far as I know only little metal detectors and should also be able to detect the difference between ferrous and non ferrous metals as well. I used to love these things when I could see, much fun scanning our walls showed up some metal in very odd places, but my mother would not let me demolish the wall to find out what they were! Grin. Brian
I'm not talking about magnets that'll take your arm off, just small discs 5-10mm across by about 2-3mm thick
My internal walls are lathe and plaster with the plaster being 10 to
15mm thick rather than thin skimmed plasterboard and I found the Zircon stud finder to be no use on my type of wall BUT I have no real experience with it on plasterboard walls.However I also have a Zircon M40 metal detector and I found this ideal for finding the studs - or rather the nails holding the lathe to the stud.
Tap the wall with a knuckle?
My technique is to suspend one from a foot or so of cotton, hold the top of the cotton against the wall and then move it around. You quite quickly spot even well buried nails or screws by the anomalous movements.
Not seen them before. £64 on Amazon to save you looking it up.
Andrew laid this down on his screen :
The most reliable way to finally confirm where a stud is, is via the use of a strong magnet. Find a row of screw or nail heads, mark them and you have located the stud.
I have a very powerful circular magnet (ex microwave?) which will definately find the heads of the plasterboard nails hidden under ceiling artex. I can actually feel the tugging as I pass it over a ferrous nail/screw head.
This is DIY, surely wind your own coil on an old bog roll, insert a iron core and connect up to DC battery ?.
Albeit a few years ago I paid nothing like that price for it. I guess that there is still difficulty in supplying from the USA. Many UK companies are saying out-of-stock. Some US sites are listing it at under $20.
A random check gives £42
What's it like for plasterboard with a metallised vapour barrier?
No idea, as a wrote before many of my internals wall are lathe and plaster with a very thick plaster layer.
The Zircon on Amazon is £42 when I follow the link?
Another phantom delivery
From their tracking
Delivery attempted today at 2:41 PM Unfortunately, we ran into an issue when attempting your delivery. We will try again.
I know with 100% certainty that no delivery was attempted at that time or for at least 30 minutes before or after that time!
Weird, this one is giving me £64
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