Anyone recommend a pin and magnet set for finding studs and joists?

[Keitai]

Want to find studs and joists a for strong fixings and heard the best way is using a pin and magnet. Any recommendations for buying these?

 

[foxhole]

I just poke a fine screwdriver thru till I hit one then measure on from that.

 

[HERTS P&D]

Doing more handyman work Keitai?

Andy

 

[Keitai]

I just poke a fine screwdriver thru till I hit one then measure on from that.

You use a spirit level when you hit one? I spoke to guy who said the expensive stud finders he sells are good but not cheap ones. But job and knock on here I remember didn't rate them and used a magnet and pin or something. He really knows his stuff

 

[rsgaz]

You just need a neodymium magnet, not sure what you mean about the pin. Buy a nice shape and length to hold easily...
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/371917677007
...because they are nickel plated and the nickel can 'draw' on the wall. You want a nice shape to hold so you can 'hover' the magnet 1 or 2mm away from the wall surface while you find the screws. Your fingers are the part rubbing against the wall instead.

 

[Keitai]

Are studs in all walls and joists in all ceilings at 400 centres?

 

[rsgaz]

Are studs in all walls and 400 centres?

No, much more likely to be 600. Plasterboard is usually 1220mm, so 610mm centres is also seen(because that's 2 feet in old money).
If you find 400mm centres, that could still also be 16inches instead(very close to 400).

 

[Keitai]

No, much more likely to be 600. Plasterboard is usually 1220mm, so 610mm centres is also seen(because that's 2 feet in old money).
If you find 400mm centres, that could still also be 16inches instead(very close to 400).

Are studs and joists in all walls so no excuse for a poor fixing?

 

[rsgaz]

Studs, yes. Unless you are misfortune enough to find paramount partition, which is weak cardboard crap.

 

[EddieM]

Stud finders are pretty much all useless, never tried the bosch d-tect 150, and at about £500 I doubt I ever will.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

You use a spirit level when you hit one? I spoke to guy who said the expensive stud finders he sells are good but not cheap ones. But job and knock on here I remember didn't rate them and used a magnet and pin or something

Ta!

As RSGaz has suggested a neodymium magnet will help you find screws or clout nail heads beneath the plasterboard. I then prod with something like a sharp awl (as I have one in my toolkit) although the small screwdriver suggested by Foxhole works in the same sort of way. Main thing is to use something which will leave you with a minimal size of hole to fill and make good should that be necessary and which won't cause thin skim the "shell" off the wall.

BTW you can "measure" plumb using something as simple as a steel nut tied to a piece of string. More reliable than the levels some of our brickies use (that one is for Steve.....)

Plasterboard is usually 1220mm, so 610mm centres is also seen(because that's 2 feet in old money).
If you find 400mm centres, that could still also be 16inches instead(very close to 400).

Sorry mate, but plasterboard has been 1200 (not 1220) ever since we metricated in the 1970s (and did that every mess up the guys who used a folding, non-metric rule back then I can tell you!). Can make quite a difference to finding stuff (or not) over the distance of a wall

 

[rsgaz]

plasterboard has been 1200 (not 1220)

Gyproc still sell both...

I have many times seen plasterboarders trimming 10mm off each side of boards with a surform to match what the carpenters have built. Maybe it's a regional thing?

But, I did balls it up, yes. I guess "usually 1200, but can also be 1220" would be the right way round instead. The main point I was getting at is that it's nowhere near as "standard" as it ought to be!

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Gyproc still sell both...

I have many times seen plasterboarders trimming 10mm off each side of boards with a surform to match what the carpenters have built. Maybe it's a regional thing?

More likely that it's a batch of export sized boards that had been dumped on the local market when an export order fell through. The problem is that Gyproc aren't the only game in town. For example there's Knauf (German)..... OK, granted that for the right quantity they'll make you any size you like, but the oddball sizes do tend to be used on more large scale buildings (hotels, conference halls, shopping centres, etc) than domestics

Agreed that it ought to be the standard, but TBH I cannot recall any wall I've framed-out (and in many cases clad with plasterboard) since the early 1980s being on 16in centres - it's pretty much all been 400mm. On the other hand I have more times than that had to add-in additional timbers to carry boards when some muppet has put-in framework on 16in centres (and the boards were 1200...). And that's all over the midlands and north. Hence my comments. Even my local builder's merchants (who were near incredulous at my request for taper edge boards and collated screws as recently as 1992 - they didn't stock them) were selling only metric boards as early as 1987

 

[Keitai]

More likely that it's a batch of export sized boards that had been dumped on the local market when an export order fell through. The problem is that Gyproc aren't the only game in town. For example there's Knauf (German)..... OK, granted that for the right quantity they'll make you any size you like, but the oddball sizes do tend to be used on more large scale buildings (hotels, conference halls, shopping centres, etc) than domestics

Agreed that it ought to be the standard, but TBH I cannot recall any wall I've framed-out (and in many cases clad with plasterboard) since the early 1980s being on 16in centres - it's pretty much all been 400mm. On the other hand I have more times than that had to add-in additional timbers to carry boards when some muppet has put-in framework on 16in centres (and the boards were 1200...). And that's all over the midlands and north. Hence my comments. Even my local builder's merchants (who were near incredulous at my request for taper edge boards and collated screws as recently as 1992 - they didn't stock them) were selling only metric boards as early as 1987

400mm is 15.8 inches. Is this what you meant by 400 not being 16 inches. Did you mean that small difference?

So studs are 400mm apart from corner of wall? How about joists?

 

[Deleted member 174758]

400mm is 15.8 inches. Is this what you meant by 400 not being 16 inches. Did you mean that small difference?

May seem like a small difference, but that small difference is enough to screw things up completely when trying to locate studs, especially if they are metal and only 35mm wide.

So studs are 400mm apart from corner of wall? How about joists?

In modern domestics you can find either 400 or 600mm centres on joists (I've installed both, 600mm is more common). I find that dry liners can be a bit hit an miss on the positioning of intermediate studs (they are generally installed loose and adjusted into position before being screwed) with only the studs at the edges of boards being in a guaranteed place (because they need to be there to support the joint). Ceilings are pretty much always 600mm centres in my experience. Problem is that you cannot always guarantee that the first stud in a wall running away from a corner will be at 400mm or 600mm - I've seen instances where a wall frame is installed then boarded and a bisecting wall is then tied into the first wall at a non-standard centre by simply screwing through the new frame and already-skinned (on side only) wall into a piece (or pieces) of MF stud on the back face of the PB (this being at the stage where one side of the wall still hasn't been skinned to allow services such as electrical wiring, data cables, etc to be installed). That's why magnets make sense as a way of finding the screws