I have a terrible track record with buying electronic stud finders: they never work. It never fails. I run an electronic stud finder over the wall, and it lights up and beeps, telling me that it just found a stud. Then, after marking the exact spot it said there was a stud, I drill into it, only to discover there’s no stud.
My electronic stud finder just lied to me.
I installed some floating shelves last weekend, and I was extremely irritated at the false-positives my stupid electronic stud finder, the Zircon StudSensor e50, was giving me. I decided I would look this week for something better. I was willing to spend any amount of money on a new stud finder as long as I was confident it would actually work. My research narrowed to the CH Hanson Magnetic Stud Finder. Not only is it the greatest, most accurate stud finder I’ve ever owned, it was also the cheapest one I’ve ever bought. I paid less than nine bucks for it on Amazon.
The CH Hanson Magnetic Stud Finder is much different from the electronic stud finders I’ve used before. For one thing, it’s not electronic. It doesn’t use sensors or even a battery. It uses two powerful rare earth magnets that don’t need electric power.
Instead of looking for a stud, it looks for screws or nails embedded into a stud. Find a screw or a nail, and you are going to find a stud. You run the CH Hanson Magnetic Stud Finder over the wall in a lazy “S” pattern, and when it finds a screw, you know it. Instead of lighting up or beeping, it pulls strongly to the screw or the nail.
The pull is so strong that you can take your hand off the tool, and it stays on the wall. The powerful rare earth magnets keep the tool fixed exactly to the wall where the screw or nail is. Not only does this prove there is a stud behind that exact spot, but you also don’t even have to mark the spot with a pencil.
The CH Hanson Magnetic Stud Finder will be the last stud finder I ever buy.
It felt good throwing my old electronic stud sensor into the trash. I hope it ends up in a landfill next to a used adult diaper and a VHS copy of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
I love the CH Hanson Magnetic Stud Finder. It’s the best nine bucks I’ve ever spent.
Martin X says
Thanks for your review. As a result, I ordered a powerful rare earth magnet. It didn’t seem like the plastic shell of this product offered much advantage over the technology it used. We’ll see. 🙂