[TheForge] Stud finders/stake finder

[Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer]

Even closer to on topic..
I was taking the dents out of a deep hollow body sculpture part. 
The dents were 18" down a skinny neck in a bulge ,on the far end 
of the piece. None of my stakes would reach that far and it 
wasn't a straight shot.
I took the end 2 1/2 feet of a 1"sucker rod and dressed out the 
small end. Then i bent the length to fit the curves of the hollow 
body. The wrench flats of the sucker rod fit nicely in the big 
vise to make an upright phallic sort of stake.
Fitted the hollow body over the upright stake, guessed at the 
location of the hidden end of the stake and started tapping with 
a little hammer trying to locate it. That proved to be slow and 
frustrating. Everytime i relaxed and let the hollow body shift, 
i'd lose the location of the backup inside.
Finally got a strong 1"round rare earth magnet and slapped it on 
the exterior of the dent, then waved the hollowbody around until 
the end of the stake was pulled to the inside of the dent..worked 
good....pete f

Bruce Freeman wrote:
> Don,
> Funny you should ask.
> The incredibly powerful rare earth magnets are a good choice.  Much better than a cheap commercial electronic stud finder.  I recently posted the use of one of these, modified to make the search quicker.  To do that, put a 2" square piece of paper on the working end of the magnet and suspend the magnet from a thread or light string as a pendulum.  The paper is to protect the wall and to keep the magnet from spinning.  Swing this back and forth, and it will hesitate when it passes over a nail head.
> If the nail heads are very deep, you may have to skip the pendulum and work by hand.
> If you're into sophistocated electronics, you can wrap a coil around a magnet, and connect the ends to a galvanometer or oscilloscope.  When the magnet passes metal, the magnetic flux lines are altered, generating a current in the coil, which registers as a voltage or current.  Such a device can be purchased commercially, but if you're gonna do that, you might as well just buy a stud finder.
> Bruce
> NJ
> 
>>>> plumdon at aol.com 3/8/2007 5:50 PM >>>
> A customer wants to mount a small 37 pound segment of copper ore over 
> her fireplace. It is a beautifully colored and textured 24" x 11" piece 
> of natural ore that has been sliced into a 1-1/2" thick item.  This is 
> a very upscale home and the owners are not tolerant of mistakes. There 
> is white oak paneling on the wall over the fireplace. I have no way of 
> determining how thick it is. I will be making the mounting brackets, 
> etc., and installing. I want to go through to the studs but unsure what 
> I might use to find them.  I have seen some devices rated at 1-1/2" but 
> never used them, not sure if that is enough depth range or if they 
> really work.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a device ot technique that might help?
> 
> Regards and thanks
> 
> Don Plummer
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