[TheForge] Stud finders/stake finder

[Jay Hayes]

Another solution to indicate the sweet spot on a stake is a trick Wray 
showed me a few years ago. He had the laser pointer fixed to the ceiling 
directly over his post dolly stand. To save the batteries he rigged a 
foot switch at the base of the post dolly stand. When the stake is 
covered with the metal the dot from the laser marks the sweet spot on 
the stake. Laser pointers and line lasers are getting cheap and can be 
used for all sorts of things around the shop. Some even have magnets to 
hold them on.

Jay

Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer wrote:
> 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