Stanley Magnetic Stud Finder - 47-400

Works just fine. It's a magnet so it will find nails in the studs. If you're not Patient, well, it might be challenging.. It's worth the money..

Now when everything seems to gravitate toward the hi-tech versions it's hard to find one of these little old-fashioned cheap tools. But for just a quick check to hang a picture or for carrying around in your pocket, this is totally adequate.

Perfect

Good for what it is meant to do

There are a lot of ways to hunt for studs behind drywall. After tapping the wall to listen for hollow vs. solid sounds, this little tool is probably the oldest.My application here was a bit different. I knew where the wood behind the drywall was, but I specifically needed to know where the screws were for a ceiling speaker install.For some reason (a previous patch?) someone laid a 2x4 on my drop ceiling and screwed into it randomly. Unfortunately, this was done right where I needed to mount a speaker. I needed to find the screws so I could get the 2x4 out of the way.I remembered that my grandfather had a tool like this so I searched for it on Amazon and found this little guy. The concept is simple. It's a cylindrical magnet pivoted near or at its center inside of a plastic housing. You slide this across the drywall, and when you slide over a (ferrous) screw or nail head, the magnet will move inside the housing to follow it. Then you can slide back and forth around it a bit to zero in on its location.I used it here and it worked perfectly. Now that hole is clear and ready for me to mount my speaker... all thanks to hanging with my grand dad and poking around in his toolbox.