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Comment by aikinai | Hacker News Reader

This is missing staples! I'm not sure if there's anything similar available in other countries, but I swear by this staple-based wall-mount product sold in Japan[0].

Right now I have a 55" TV wall-mounted with nothing but staples.

[0]https://kabebijin.net/products/detail.php?product_id=122

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First and foremost, that's insane. Not surprising, but not something I would have thought existed before being told about it.

I've never come across something like that in North America - I wonder if it's because (it appears) you'd need a special mount for the VESA mount to attach to?

Everything you need comes with the product. You staple the plate to the wall using little plastic films and then there’s another piece that hooks onto the plate. Then you attach the TV to that piece with screws into the VESA holes.

That connecting piece can either be articulating (like the one I linked to) or just a metal hook with screw holes on the other side (that's the one I have actually).

I wonder if such a mounting solution would work when paired with the crumbly gypsum based drywall commonly found in North America.

Probably not. Japanese construction is the best in the world (I think, by a fairly large margin). I have always been in awe of the speed and quality of their construction industry.

Has to do with all the earthquakes they get, and strong government regulations (with big nasty teeth).

They indeed build for earthquakes, but that does not imply they build for longevity. See: https://japanpropertycentral.com/2012/06/what-is-the-lifespa...

Japan tends to tear down and rebuild their buildings more often than other countries. Old buildings depreciate in value rather than appreciate as people in Japan typically don't like "second hand" items up to and including housing.

Yes. I have heard that. It's odd, but it also means that you don't have many of the same problems that we do, in the US.

Wait, what do they use in Japan? I’ve always loathed drywall but haven’t known of any valid alternatives.

What's to hate about drywall? It's easy to work with. It's fairly resilient to abuse. It's easy to paint. It's simple to patch. Having dealt with plaster, wood and concrete walls, I can't think of anything I'd rather.

It’s also fire resistant, because gypsum has a lot of water bound up in it. Drywall will resist burning, and will also slow down a fire as it takes a lot of heat energy to convert the bound up water to steam.

That’s a big negative. Most of the anchors sold at the store fail with heavy loads. The best drywall anchor I’ve found is the cobra.

Looks like there's 232 holes in the backplate which gives you 464 staples to distribute the 15kg max across - giving ~32g per staple (although I guess it'd be biased from top to bottom because the TV would be a lever in the middle?)

Definitely insane but also impressively bonkers.

Your plasterboard/drywall looks different to what I'm used to. Here in the UK we have plaster with a thick paper surface. The photos in that advert imply to me that you have a woven surface of some sort in Japan.

Staples would be unlikely to grip sufficiently in our plasterboard. I suspect that shear would not be a problem but moments will almost certainly be a bit of a problem. The failure mode here would not be the telly crashing to the floor vertically but gradually loosening from the top of the mounting and then swinging forwards off the wall.

I use at least eight, six inch no 10 screws here for TV mounts into brickwork, with decent plugs. Into wood, ie stud wall I'll use shorter screws. I also sometimes use extra washers - depends on the load. I've never had a TV mount fail!

A decent hammer drill/driver and a decent bit can drive a 8mm hole in a few seconds. By the time you've stapled in a hundred staples, I'd be watching the News! I would certainly not be trying to explain to the Boss (wife/partner) how the TV is held up 8)

That said, those staples look like a very clever solution, given the right circumstances. Not everyone is happy with a hammer drill.

You wouldn’t just be watching the news; you could be done watching a movie on your newly-mounted TV before I’d be done with the staples! I recently upgraded to a larger TV and used the large version of this mount that used 750 staples. And my “wallpaper” here is some thick, rubbery substance that the staples can barely go through so each one had to be driven slowly with care, not using the momentum from the stapler pop. It took hours.

This isn’t for speed, but for when you don’t have any other option.

(Old) Pro-tip here. The regular brown rawl type plug works fine a lot of the time, but you want one with thicker plastic... and you don't necessarily need to pay more for it. Secondly in response to you point above...use a 7mm hole, not 8. It should take anything from a size 8-10 in good materials and a 12 in rubbish materials like soft brick. If you have problems some other tricks are to put a red plug inside the brown one, or drill a 5.5mm (red plug size) hole and stick a brown plug in it.

Most builders won't buy the nice Fischer ones for you, so have to improvise...

For places where you have a drywall dabbed to masonry you can have significant lateral movement between the plug in the masonry and the thing you are fixing on the outside of the plasterboard. That's where long plugged fixings massively help, where the plug reaches right through to the face of the dry lining.

Not sure why I wrote 8mm. I have tons of 7mm bits lying around, worn smooth 8)

A squirt of "sticks like ..." mixed with brick or conc. dust is another solution to consider, depending on how permanent/important/immediate the fixing is.

> Your plasterboard/drywall looks different to what I'm used to. Here in the UK we have plaster with a thick paper surface. The photos in that advert imply to me that you have a woven surface of some sort in Japan.

I just assumed that was wall paper. We had it in a living room of a house built in the US in the 1980s, it had 40 years of paint on it and was never coming off the drywall.

Are those staples expanding or serrated or something? And how deep do they go? I wouldn't put up a TV with those myself, the one I have now is attached with eight bolts going in err, over 5 cm deep into solid concrete walls.

Of course the TV itself is hanging on the bracket with just two bolts, held down with gravity and some thin metal wire retainers. It wobbles when touched.

I think your main worry is breaking the drywall/changing the angle, rather than the staples pulling out or shearing off.

It's not like TVs are very heavy, and the weight adds to the friction forces holding the staples in. Especially if the staple has to pull upwards to be removed, it's unlikely to be going anywhere unless the material falls out from under it

They're regular, small staples not going in particularly deep, but the aggregate friction is enough to hold it very firmly. Here's a video of a guy pulling on it so hard his (admittedly thin) wall flexes[0].

I forgot if it was this video or another one; I've seen someone hanging from it to test the strength.

[0] https://youtu.be/uYYhNf9GVZY?t=469

When you're mounting something the important thing is that the stress is distributed across the mounts in a way that means no single component is receiving more weight than it can take. Using lots and lots of 'weak' mounts like staples is just as secure as using eight bolts, but in the case of the staples the load is distributed across more of the wall. If the wall itself is the weak point then that's more secure.

Never thought of this but it makes total sense. Like how you can rip a piece of paper apart easily but try doing the same with a book.

Nifty idea.

I wonder what's really easier, though. I usually hang TVs with 4-6 screws. Is it easier to put in 4-6 screws, or 100 staples?

I guess the advantage of staples is that each staple is easier, and it doesn't require juggling a screwdriver, swapping bits, ect.

Replied above, but the staples are almost certainly more difficult. It’s just very secure without any studs and it doesn’t leave large holes.

For those in the US, I've used this "No stud" TV mount multiple times with great success on TVs up to 43". Granted there is no swivel feature, it's super easy to install and very secure.

https://www.amazon.com/Hangman-Products-S-2040A-Hanger-55-In...

This is hilarious, it should be a own HN-Entry...

This setup would induce anxiety in me each time I would watch that TV and think its about to fail. And I'd always be thinking I'll need to patch all those tiny holes in the future.

Looks like the mount is limited to 15kg? A quick sample of ten different 55” models 2020+ showed only two were less than 15kg without stand.

I linked to the small-sized mount since the picture was clearer, but I actually use the large size[0] for my 55" since it's officially rated for 25kg.

[0] https://kabebijin.net/products/detail.php?product_id=123

The pictures seem to use a regular stapler. Is that all it takes? What wall material are you stapling into?

I guess that's why you need like 180 staples. Which may be considered more polite than drilling 2-4 big holes.

I think I'd rather fill 2-4 big holes than 180 tiny ones. Interesting idea though.

Looking through the pictures again it suggests those staple holes are smaller than pin holes and might be "filled in" with a single coat of paint.

The staple holes are so small you likely don't need to fill them in. This is designed in/for Japan where most apartments have this weird soft textured wallpaper that hides the holes quite well. But if you drilled bigger holes in a rental, you would definitely be charged a lot when moving out.

Looks like the wall my cube is made out of.

Yeah, a regular stapler. It's meant for drywall.

This looks like it would hold against gravity, but would it hold if I pull straight out towards me?

Dear god that’s terrifying.

Fantastic. And Frustrating.

You win this thread.

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