This challenge continues to baffle both professional carpenters and do-it-yourselfers. But short of having X-ray vision, finding exactly where the studs are located can be quite tricky. Only the heavier, thicker wooden studs behind the relatively light, thin plaster of the walls can bear the weight of something heavy like a big plasma TV. Sometimes the fastest way really is to make a bigger mess and patch things afterwards, rather than a small mess and lots of hassle.You'll need to know where the studs are located in your walls to hang heavy pictures or put up new shelves. Use a respirator with filters and a shop vac for cleanup. Accept that you will have to cut holes in the walls in places and replace the plaster/lathe with drywall. My last bit of advice would be to expect a lot more work than you think is necessary. Most of the time you have to paint the walls anyway after doing work. If I had to do it again, I would go with the tap test first to get close, then the drill bit to confirm location, and mud to fix the small holes. I also frequently used a drill with a small bit and made lots of small holes that I later filled with mud. I personally used the tap test to find studs. I've heard that the magnet thing works, but you need to have super strong rare-earth magnets to be quicker and effective. I have 3 stud finders of different brands and none of them was worth a squat with plaster and lathe. In my experience, most stud finders are useless for your particular application. I mention all of this to illustrate the difficulties of working on very old homes. Older homes also do not have "standard" stud spacing, so every stud has to be checked for confirmation of its existence. After cutting out a small section of wall I found that there was an extra horizontal cross board preventing me from drilling all the way down through the floor. When I went to run wire and add three-way switches so you could turn the light on/off from both doors, I had a hell of a time. One room had a single switch for the lights. I did a bunch of electrical work to update and increase convenience for us. I previously owned a house built in 1920, if memory serves me right. I do much better at finding nails and staples manually with careful observation of how the piece was assembled. I ran my own tests with nails and staples in scrap wood, and most of the time it failed to detect them, even though I knew where the nails and staples were and could hold the stud finder directly over them. The metal detector in our Zircon stud finder is useless for finding individual nails and staples in old furniture. I salvage wood from old furniture for my woodworking. Stud finder metal detectors are not precision tools. It is better than nothing and not that reliable in our house, but it was the best we could find. Our Zircon stud finder has a regular and "deep" scan mode, a metal detector, and electric current detector. All too often I predrill through the plaster and hit air instead of a stud. I use a combination of the top of the line Zircon stud finder, neodymium (super-) magnets that I harvested from old disk drives, and the back of a spoon for the "listen test." I prefer spoons to light hammers for the listen test. We have a 1950s house with plaster walls. Any ideas on how to locate studs and crossbeams (width) in lathe and plaster walls? I have to be careful re dust since the old paint may be lead based. The resistance to the 1/16" drill bit was mildly firm for the first 1/2" or so into the wall, then there was no resistance for about 1/4" or so, then the mild resistance returned suggesting maybe I hit some lathe. My stud finder was inconsistent in identifying stud locations and did not appear to work, and my friend thought his stud finder worked in identifying stud locations, but when I tested the identified marked locations on the wall by drilling a 1/16" diameter hole (about 1.5" into the wall), the drill bit resistance was the same at the stud finders marked locations and everywhere in-between the marked locations, meaning neither stud finder appeared to work on the old lathe and plaster walls. I used my stud finder, and separately a friend used his (a different brand, different time) to try to locate studs and crossbeams over an entrance-way from the front room to the dining room in an old 1920's era house.
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