CH Hanson 03040 STUD4SURE Magnetic Stud Finder

I've tried the numerous expensive stud finders over the years and returned them all. This one is cheap and simple. And it works like a charm. I love it!

This little magnet device is exactly 3 inches long including the protruding ring, and a little over 2.5 inches otherwise. It's 1.25 inches wide. The magnet seems fairly strong.

The packaging says it contains rare earth material and while that's an interesting selling point, I doubt it has more than an irrelevant amount of rare earth metals. Rare earth metals would be too expensive to use in a material way.

In general, magnet stud finders are for locating studs behind drywall, and battery powered stud finders are for finding studs in any situation including behind plaster. If a house is genuinely old, it probably has plaster and you wouldn't be able to use this little stud finder.

There are limitations to using this stud finder even with drywall. Namely, this stud finder actually finds nails. Those nails will be in a stud to be sure, but they might not be in the middle of the stud and they are vertically spaced. Even so, this is a reliable way to locate studs. Moreover, this unit actually does stick to the wall when the magnet locates a stud, freeing up the hands to use tools, screws and such.

I think this is a great tool for its purpose. It may be overpriced considering its size, but it would not benefit from being any bigger. I recommend it for the purpose I outlined.

It works great on sheetrock walls with screws or nails. I couldn't do what I wanted: find hidden nails in window frames. Turned out the nails were too small and deep for this. I won't get rid of my electronic stud finders, on tough problems I will probably need them all.

I had an electronic studfinder that was a piece of junk. I ended up with holes all over my walls. I spent about $10 on a Stud-4-Sure magnet and it nails the stud every time! Lesson learned here is to keep it simple and save money. This magnet is much more powerful than your standard refrigerator magnet so it is well worth the pricetag.

Magnet is so strong I keep the thing on the wall wherever I want. Quality item meant to last, and priced right!