[TheForge] OT: The best stud finder yet! (Minimal iron content. The ladies shouldn't get their hopes up...)

[Bruce Freeman]

This bounced, so I'm resending it.  (Too risque' a
title, I think.)

> Having tried and discarded the old-fashioned silly
> compass-needle-type magnetic stud finder with little
> luck, and having recently tried two different modern
> electronic stud, steel and electrical finders with
> JUST AS LITTLE LUCK, I have proceded to design a
> dime-store stud finder of my own.  Too simple to
> patent.  Too good not to announce to the world:
> 
> Take a very strong small (e.g. 1/2" cylinder, 1/2"
> long) magnet and suspend it from a string or heavy
> thread about 3' long.  Tape the face of the magnet 
> near the middle of a 2" square piece of stiff paper
> (typical copy paper stock, not too thick).  
> 
> Before you do anything else, try it on a known nail
> in
> the wall.  (Usually there's SOMEWHERE where you can
> find one easily.  Try above and either side of a
> light
> switch or outlet box, as these are often mounted
> nailed to a stud.)  
> 
> To use the stud finder, place the paper side against
> the wall, hold by the string about 18" from the
> magnet.  The paper keeps the magnet from marking the
> wall, and also keeps the magnet from rotating on the
> end of the string.  Now oscillate the contraption
> like
> a pendulum, with the paper side against the wall.  
> 
> If your "pendulum" is 18" long, the period (back and
> forth) will be 1 second.  If you swing it so it
> traverses about 20", the magnet won't actually latch
> onto the nailhead, but it will hesitate very
> distinctly as it passes the nailhead.  
> 
> Move the magnet up about half the width of the
> magnet
> with each half-swing.  When you pass over a nail the
> magnet will hesitate.  Now zero in on that nailhead
> more carefully.  There'll be no question when you
> find
> a nailhead.
> 
> The assumption, of course, is that the nail is in a
> stud.  This is not always true, so renew the search
> in
> smaller sweeps of the pendulum, above and below the
> nail you just found.  Once you find two or three
> nailheads, you can be pretty sure you've found a
> stud.
> 
> Seems ridiculously simple, but this method is head
> and
> shoulders better than any I've ever tried before.
> 
> Bruce
> NJ
> 


 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. 
Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.
http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html