Could’ve used one of these yesterday. My father-in-law needed help mounting a TV and we couldn’t find a stud to save our lives. We eventually discovered that the wall had deep studs due to ½ inch chipboard in addition to the ¾ inch drywall. We literally start randomly hammering nails into the wall to find the studs, which led us to that discovery.
I had something very similar - a wall with old wood paneling that had been painted so you can’t tell it’s wood paneling any more. My stud finder was having a hard time due to the thickness of the wood on top of the drywall. I drilled a hole and stuck my little USB camera in there. Life saver.
I recently bought a metal detector/stud finder for that exact reason. I also am an electrician and have to find studs or rebar often when drilling and it’s been great for that too. In your case it would work by detecting the nails in the studs instead of looking for the studs themselves. I got the Zircon Metalliscanner (I believe)
