Can Blindmark Help You Locate Electric Receptacles Behind Drywall?

The Foolproof Way to Find Electric Boxes Behind Drywall

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By Lee Wallender, About.com Guide

How to install electrical receptacles in drywall - Blindmark

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You're about to pound your electrical receptacle into the stud and hang the drywall. But after the sheet is hung, how do you locate the darn box? In the old days, there were 2 methods:

Pound the box in place. Measure its location. Transfer these measurements to the back of your Sheetrock. Good luck, buddy.
The Lipstick Method. Ah, this is a real gem. Score some lipstick from your wife or girlfriend. Or, heck, maybe you use lipstick yourself - whatever, use that. Smear lipstick on rim of box. Press drywall against box. Cut. Yeah, this one works real good. Just try it.

But there is a solution:

Blindmark - Using the Power of Rare Earth Magnets to Reduce Frustration

Then along comes a solution so brilliant in its simplicity, you wonder why no one ever thought of it before.

Extrude a piece of yellow plastic the exact shape of the electrical box interior. Make it fit really well - you can even impress a couple of half-circles in the plastic to accommodate the screw holes found at the top and bottom of receptacles. That gives the plastic a real snug fit. Stick a couple of rare earth magnets in there. Now, let's call that plastic the "target."

Make another piece of this impact resistant plastic, but this piece will be slightly bigger. And it will exactly describe the inside dimensions of the receptacle. Add two magnets.

That's the Blindmark

Get Perfectly Aligned Drywall Every Time

Locate Receptacles with Ease

With its three targets, Blindmark allows you to do one triple-gang box or three single boxes. No, you'll never be installing three singles per sheet of Drywall, but this allows you to hang a good five or six sheets before doubling back to do your cut-outs. As Borat would say: "Nice."

Does Blindmark Work?

Blindmark is a pretty fool-proof tool. The targets fit perfectly into the boxes. The locators are the right size. The magnets are more than strong enough to seek enough other out and clamp firmly together. Everything comes in a nice, slim case that doesn't take up too much room in your toolbox or in your shop.

You do need to slightly wiggle the locator around to make sure you've got it correctly mated up with the target. But that's about it. Even so, it wouldn't matter if you didn't get it perfectly mated. The face plate will more than cover any kind of imperfections.

Recommended?

Locate Receptacles with Ease

When renovating a house a few years ago, I had reached a point in my drywall hanging where I got extremely frustrated with misaligned boxes. I gave up on using the (better) pound-in-stud variety of boxes and switched over to the (worse) type that hangs on the back of the drywall via little plastic "wings." I didn't like those boxes, but it was the only way to keep moving ahead.

I so wish I had Blindmark back then.

Recommended? You bet.

User Reviews

5 out of 5

Drywall cut-outs are now easy!, Member Carol.Gaetke

I volunteer with my local chapter of Habitat for Humanity (Habitat of Southern Brazoria County, Texas). We have been using a product named BlindMark to locate and mark electrical boxes and vents for the last 18 houses that we have built. This is a marvelous product which allows even the most inexperienced workers to make accurate cut-outs. Since we started using this product, we have had clean, close fitting openings with no missed boxes or cut wires. After trying out the BlindMark magnets on a personal project, I bought and donated some to my local chapter. It has really helped us speed-up the process of drywall hanging, AND the results are so much more professional looking. The process is easy: place a target magnet inside each electrical box, mark on the floor which side of the stud the box is on (I use an arrowhead mark), lightly tack-up the drywall sheet, pass the locator magnet over the area of the box and let it “lock-onto” the target magnet (the magnets are polarized), trace around the outside of the locator and cut (we use a spiral saw with a guide-tip blade to guide counter-clockwise around the outside of the box). Push the sheet all the way to the studs and fasten. It is so simple and very fast with accurate professional results. I wish that I had the money to donate BlindMark kits to every chapter, but that not being the case, I hope that this recommendation will inspire other chapters and ""do-it-yourselfers"" to look into this way of making drywall cut-outs.

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