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Have you ever tried to find a stud in one of your house’s walls so you could hang a large picture, a TV or some other heavy object on the wall?
If your experience was anything like mine you probably ended up frustrated with several holes in your wall because you made several wrong guesses.
Now you know I’m all about technology and electronics so I’ve tried a number of different electronic stud finders. Truth be told, I’ve never found one that works reliably on every wall and in every home. They all tend to either fail to find a stud at all or go into that irritating flashing mode that indicates some kind of error.
Well, a couple of years ago I discovered a very low-tech stud finder called the Studbuddy. In a nutshell, it’s nothing more than a very light, but powerful magnet enclosed in a long torpedo-shaped plastic housing. A friend had told me about it and he couldn’t stop praising it’s virtues. According to him it was the best thing since the discovery of fire.
He said the way it works is you run it along your wall in a zig-zag pattern in the vicinity of where you want to hang your object. When it finds a nail or screw in the wall the magnet latches onto it and “sticks”, letting you know exactly where the center of the stud is.
I decided to give the Studbuddy a try so I stopped in at my local home improvement store and picked one up. It was all of about 10 bucks so I figured if it didn’t work it wouldn’t be a huge loss.
When I got that thing home and gave it a try I was actually amazed at how well it worked. I must have used it at least a dozen times, with excellent results every time. But I went looking for it a while back when I needed to locate another stud and I couldn’t find it.
I was getting ready to place an order for some things I needed on Amazon so I thought I’d check to see if Amazon had the Studbuddy. Of course they do (they have everything, right?) but while I was searching for it I ran across what appeared to be the same exact item by a company called Calvana. It came in a 4-pack and it cost about 20 bucks, making each unit about half the price of a Studbuddy.
I really liked the idea of a 4-pack because I’m constantly losing things. Once again I figured at 20 bucks it was worth giving the Calvana stud finders a try. And once again, I was very pleased with the results.
These things work so much better than the electronic stud finders and they are a lot cheaper to boot. And since there’s no electronics involved there are no batteries to buy.
Bottom line: If you’re looking for a really good stud finder that works every time, I recommend that you give the Studbuddy a try.
But if you tend to lose small items like I do you can’t go wrong with the 4-pack of Calvana stud finders. I truly believe you’ll be well pleased with either one.
To finish up, here’s a short video showing the Studbuddy in action (the Calvanas work exactly the same way). Check it out.