Imperial measurement

[Grahamshed]

Fifteen and ninepence ? daylight robbery. You can get them for nine shillings and even that is extortionate

 

[Giff]

If you can use both use both, 2.4mtr of 3 x 2 ?. If you are doing a small drawing that you want to scale up use metric. Adding noughts to the metric version is easier than the imperial equivalent. Geoff

 

[jamesicus]

.......... Personally I was brought up in the imperial system (Fractions of an inch) .......... I think most people in the UK can "manage" in metric quite well; it's only the USA-ians who'll need the imperial version. (some irony there, surely!?)

BugBear

This really does apply to me. I was born and grew up in England 1929-1950. I have a difficult time visualizing metric measurements, but at the age of eighty three I am afraid it is too late to change for me.

James

 

[Giff]

Eh up James, you're a long way from home ! Yes I learned imperial at school as well as I don't think metric had been invented then ! I find adding up in multiples of ten easier and now use metric most of the time, but if I am explaining something to my wife I have to convert it back..but I still buy 8x4's of 18mm.. Geoff

 

[heimlaga]

As I see it the mayor drawback of feet and inches is that they are not the same everywhere. A Swedish inch is quite a bit shorter than an Imperial inch which is shorter than a Norwegian inch. There are hundreds of different inches in differeent countries. USA is such a huge country that they can disregard foreign measurements within their borders but on the European mainland the old system became a real problem towards the end.

Converting to metric is a slow process. There is no need to hurry. Finland went officially metric in the 1880-ies but old and new measurements were used side by side long after that. I am born in 1981 and still use Swedish inches and feet for some purposes. Those who are born in the 1990-ies generally use only metric. It took more than a century to convert the people to new measurements and all the time old and new has been used side by side.

 

[mseries]

To me, educated as school in the 70s and early 80s using 'the metric system', imperial makes no sense at all. Base 10 seems right and logical and it's consistent. That said I happily use imperial for measurement when woodworking since i learned most of my skills building model boats with my Dad and we always used feet and inches there. I use either, sometimes, both, my router cutters are all imperial ones though I use metric threads mostly.

 

[bugbear]

As I see it the mayor drawback of feet and inches is that they are not the same everywhere. A Swedish inch is quite a bit shorter than an Imperial inch which is shorter than a Norwegian inch. There are hundreds of different inches in differeent countries.

I didn't know that (and I'm quite interested in metrology and history).

I did know (due to my profession) that printer's measured varied very slightly from country to country until quite recently. They were similarly enough to be deceptive, but different enough to cause trouble!

Thank you!

BugBear

 

[murrmac]

May I say what a fascinating thread this has been ?

If I may make a contribution, I would like to mention the fact (for which I am in some small way responsible) that the standard (in fact universal) set-up for cutting a mason's mitre in post-formed worktops requires a 1/2" cutter in conjunction with a 30mm guide bush.

Back in 1988, as a callow "youth" (well, in my twenties ) I was employed as a wood machinist by a firm in Edinburgh who had the contract for supplying kitchen worktops to all the Wimpey Homes estates throughout the UK. This was a 8 hour job, every day, machining the joints to spec, and cutting the tops to length (with a glued on end strip when required.

The process at that time involved the placing of the worktop into a robust and substantial cradle (made from mahogany as I recall) and the placing of one of two heavy templates made from 1/2" thick aluminium depending on whether you wanted a male or female cut.

After a couple of years machining these tops, and having cut several thousand joints, I had the Eureka moment one day that it just might be possible to incorporate the male and female templates into one, reversable, template, which could be used onsite by fitters, instead of the worktops having to be "factory cut".

The long and short of it is that I went into business producing my invention (which sold under the name of the "VALUFORM postform jig" ) and I did in fact sell many of them, but for various reasons ( this was pre-internet remember) the business went belly up. In retrospect I would have been better patenting the concept of the "two templates in one" and licensing the idea ...

Anyway, getting back to the original thread , the set-up in the original 1980's jig (which btw was manufactured by Trend), involved a 1/2" cutter and a 30mm guide bush. I followed this spec in my jig, and it has since become universal among the legion of manufacturers who have copied and improved my invention, but there is absolutely no intrinsic reason why other parameters couldn't have been adopted.

 

[Eric The Viking]

If I may make a contribution, I would like to mention the fact (for which I am in some small way responsible) that the standard (in fact universal) set-up for cutting a mason's mitre in post-formed worktops requires a 1/2" cutter in conjunction with a 30mm guide bush...

How interesting!

Your choice was very practical though - Elu then making the best routers, but cutters being mainly imperial here.

I can't see the sense of 'forcing' imperial or metric. IIRC, British plywood (and possibly other board) factories were converted to metric thicknesses in the 1970s or early 1980s, yet standard boards remain to this day 8ft x 4ft (although expressed in metric). How daft is that?

It's not foolish, but it is harder to use metric for many layout and design tasks, when you are comfortable with imperial. For a start, many common imperial sizes were intended to work together, such as screws and drills and chisels and so on. Also you can divide imperial into halves, thirds, quarters, sixths, ninths, etc., very easily, and fractions are a crucial part of good layout. In imperial they can stay as fractions, so there's no cumulative error, but the big temptation in metric is to convert to decimal and then round them.

I'm lucky enough to be comfortable using both, and I like the size of the foot as an easy, by-eye measurement. I have an old house, and again it's easy to see what measurements should be (ten-foot ceilings, for example, and eleven-inch skirtings). that helps too. But I often resort to metric for small measurements, as that's easiest to use with my digital callipers.

If I had digital callipers that would switch between decimal-metric and fractional-imperial at the push of a button, it would be brilliant, but I've never seen any.

E.

 

[murrmac]

If I had digital callipers that would switch between decimal-metric and fractional-imperial at the push of a button, it would be brilliant, but I've never seen any.

E.

Eric , have a look at this ...http://www.machine-dro.co.uk/6-inch-imp ... tions.html