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I save the magnets from old disk drives. I seem to have quite a collection. I would mail you one but I think it is illegal to do that.

Maybe I could do it if I put a "keeper" on it but the bare magnet in an envelope would jam the mail sorter.

Greg...

They are shipped inside a Faraday Cage...

i.e. inside a metal container.

All of mine came that way.

Bosch has a few models too... but they aren't really cheaper. Basically there are two categories of those tools: less than $150 and won't work and $500+ and works like a charm. However, I can only see a reason to use this beast if you have solid plastered brick walls - but in US construction even exterior brick walls were commonly firred out with up to 2x4s, so you can fish wires. I think mainly rural houses older than about 1880 tend to have solid plastered walls. If you do have them, the cutter is a saving grace though. It works much faster and the channels are far more precise rather than jagged and bigger than necessary. If you do lots of work in walls like those, you might want to invest in a rotary hammer with a flat chisel bit, in order to chip out the leftover brick and plaster between the two cuts and for making box openings.

If dust is not an issue, you can use an angle grinder too and run it twice... that's what I did after trying one of the cheap cutters (thankfully I didn't buy one, only borrowed, it was so weak it kept stalling even in soft brick).

There's a Wodack plaster groover for sale on eBay for $89.00. It looks a little beat up, but those things go for about $1200.00 new.

Plaster Groover

One job back in 98/99 was plaster & red clay block. We used an air chisel & Craftsman compressor. No problem, but it was messy!! (Mess was no issue; vacant 15 story apt bldg, full gut)

Heck, $ 89 tool, I would jump, as long as it worked.

Greg,


The magnet idea is great as long as it isn't metal studs. I used the jack chain and string, fish tape, I have even used my ruler if the hole is big enough, with a 30' ruler, you get some great control over moving it down inside the wall.

Texas, I did not mention Bosch because .... Bosch North America has made a deliberate decision to NOT import these tools for this market.

Found that out when I tried to buy one ...

Hotline ... what these tools do is make a pair of saw cuts about an inch apart. You still need to chip out whatever is between the slits, though a lot of the material just falls away.

Here's what I use for fishing down walls, when I can do so.



A piece of #10 jackchain .... with a 4lb lead fishing weight attached.

Gravity is a wonderful thing.

What a fishing weight! I'd hate to see the hook .... wait, you don't need a hook, just bonk the fish in the head with it!

Might consider giving it a nice coat of gold paint, for that "Ft. Knox" style

That's a standard issue item for rock cod fishing out here, it will sit at the bottom of a string of 5-15 baited hooks or lures and be dropped down 300-1000 feet. There were occasions when you could limit out on your first drop, but not any more. Without that much weight you'd need a few thousand feet of line to get down to the bottom with the current.

Not sure about gold paint, but a couple of glow sticks usually improved the catch.

The cool part is that you only need to lift the string up a couple hundred feet before their bladders inflate from the lighter pressure and the whole string of fish floats to the surface......