My 10 year old Zircon bought the farm today.
Anyone got a favorite they'd like to recommend?
For some reason the Zircon just stopped finding studs! It _appears_ to work, but it seems to be in random mode. Yes, I've changed the battery... three times!
Thanks, Barry
Find my ex-wife, she had no problem at all finding the studs... and you'll never need to charge her batteries either!!
Remove the nospam from my address to email me!!
I'd go with another Zircon if you liked the one you have. We've tried several brands over the years and they all perform about the same. We usually break them or lose them before we wear them out. We're currently using a Zircon with the deep scan mode which seems to work a little better on sheetrock thicker than 1/2".
Mike O.
Wife got me a new Zircon for xmas (even though the 12 year old one was still working just fine). Whereas the old one only had the little light dots on the front, the new one projects a light up the wall and makes noise at the edges, has a display that "graphs" the density of the stud as you move across it, has deep-scan for thicker drywall and also a setting that detects AC wiring...that was the $39 model I guess...
We bought its little sister for $20 (same functions minus the graph) for my
76 year-old father-in-law who until then relied on the "knock" method and never knew there was any other way...I laughed my ass off x-mas day as he sought out every stud and wire in my first floor just like a little kid on an Easter egg hunt...I'd stick with Zircon...Suspect that paint composition may be an issue... Most trouble was with high-hiding white.
Interesting. Titanium oxide (I believe) is a component in white pigments. Could this be a sensitivity masking effect due to the metallic pigment component?
I have a Zircon, and we just painted the boy's room with a high-hide primer and then some loud colors. I had no problem with the stud finder when I was installing a corkboard around the walls at chair-rail height.
FWIW.
A buddy of mine that does handy man work has that unit with the display and so do I. I noticed that he had never peeled the plastic off the display that gives a representation of what the display would look like when it finds a stud. When I asked how the finder was working out for him he replied that it worked pretty good. Imagine the surprise on his face when I told him that it would work even better if he would take that plastic cover off so that he could also see and read the display. LOL. He also made a coarse tooth BI metal blade for his recip saw cut through a 1/2 thick bolt. When I questioned if he had the right blade in the saw he responded that he was using a B1 metal blade. I explained to him that it was a bi-metal blade. He is a riot to work with.
"Leon" wrote in news:wch_d.23549$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com:
Some of us don't catch all the 'fine details', visually speaking, like we once may have. And I'm denying that advancing age is a factor. Or trying to, at least.
I had the optometrist make me up some single vision glasses, with a focal range of about 24". They are a lot more comfortable for handwork, but sometimes the neighbors look a bit 'fuzzy', when they drop by the shop.
Patriarch
I bought a Stanley and it sucked.. or maybe it was just operator error.. *g*
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
Mine too. But it was physical damage that did mine in. I stood in front of the display @ Home Despot for about 15 minutes reading this and that and then grabbed another Zircon. Went with this one:
Works great. Better than the old Zircon.
I use a pair very similar. They work great within arms reach.
Sometime when you have a little extra cash you might try a new one. I do think they perform better now.
Mike O.
We've had that problem too. We have a builder who sometimes (when he can talk his customer into it) will prime the walls before we get there to trim the house. He claims this to be some kind of super duper primer. It's a big pain and none of our older stud finders would "look through" the paint. The new Zircon works a lot better but I admit that on occasion it still loses it's mind on this primer. On bare walls it works great and on normal latex walls (when we go back to hang hardware) it also seems to work fine.
It has to be something in the primer. I'm just not sure if it's the super or the duper.....
Mike O.
Thanks, folks!
I had tried my Zircon in (3), count 'em, THREE, different buildings. However, ALL of them have new paint! ALL of them are freshly painted in high-hide colors, like whites and beiges.
I bought a new $35 Zircon today, it acted just like the other one! Both units work great on walls with older ( + 1 year) paint. Neither unit worked on walls painted with high quality, high hiding paint. I returned it the new unit 4 hours after I bought it.
I can't prove it, but the fresh paint theory is holding water in my eyes,
FWIW, two of the paint jobs are top of the line Ben Moore, the other is Pratt & Lambert.
The 'wreck comes through again.
Thanks again, Barry
Uh. That was me - at least one of them...
Found that out on the last room I did. Screwed up a bit of freshly mudded and sanded walls and got real frustrated on the baseboard trim. few extra nail holes....
Gee - it wasn't just me????
My Paint was Behr and Home Hardware - not sure who makes the latter.
I'll probably get hate mail now. :-(
Barry:
A Couple more notes...
Ba r r y wrote:
Just checked my walls Zircon acted up on all of them with "wet" paint.=20 Oldest wall - painted two years ago - works fine.
I checked some walls painted Oct 2004. Beige wall - sorta OK -- worked=20 most of the time.
Sandstone (orangish rusty colour) still very flaky -- unreliable I would =
say.
FYI Titanium Oxide AFAIK was the replacement for Lead Oxide - very=20 white. Recall this cause the supplier of much of the TO was a company=20 (client) 1 hr. east of Montreal. This was a long time ago in another=20 life... Used to be the R.H. Mr. B. Mulroney worked for the company as I=20 recall... Very famous and respected Cdn PM.
Suspect that there are lots of metal oxides in paint (pretty darn sure=20 actually -- but can't be bothered with details) and that they can=20 interfere with the electric field of the Zircon... ("Mythbusters" just=20 did a show where the used the Zircon and talked to someone at the=20 company -- good show :-) )
I have the Zircon Contractor Triscanner Pro -- for your reference. FCC=20 ID# N94TS1 Assembled in Mexico - It was probably tested on Adobe walls.=20 :-) (Si senor, es verdad, el Zircon esta hablando mucho conmigo...)
Maybe a paint expert can explain why all this should be so. As for me -- =
just happy to have it confirmed by other people that it even could be=20 true and is not the way I hold my nose while looking for studs.
Maybe I'll give it to my wife -- she says she could use it -- not sure=20 why though???
--=20 Will R. Jewel Boxes and Wood Art
On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 05:04:33 GMT, the inscrutable "Don" spake:
You're in good company, Don. A lot of the id^H^Hgreat folks here misspell words as complex as "hobbyist" and as simple as "too" on a regular basis. At least you CAUGHT your typo. ;)
---------------------------------------------------------- Please return Stewardess to her original upright position. --------------------------------------
Interesting idea. Dad deals in some high tech energy reflective stuff that makes the high hide white look dirty gray. He painted his den in that stuff. I'll try my (Zircon) stud finder and see if the paint makes it misbehave.
Now that it has come up, I used this thing to find studs to hang a heavy ass mirror in the dining room, and it worked fine, but it didn't work worth a crap a couple three years later (fresh battery) when I went to hang a shelf in the living room, a month or so after painting it a pastel blue. Betcha it really could be the paint.
Or not. White lead is a metal oxide too, come to think of it, and lead absorbs radiation. Maybe the metal oxide thing is a red herring.
Maybe it's just the moisture in fresh paint, or a combo of the moisture and certain pigments?
Barry
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