Metric v. Standard measurement usage survey / ?

[Rod Sheridan]

Canada went metric in the seventies, so science for me is metric, as is road speed, fuel volumes etc.

In woodworking however I was using Imperial and metric, then I decided to learn the 32mm system for cabinet making. That's when I realised how convenient it was to use metric and not have fractions.

This was very obvious when designing stuff, and I then decided to go metric for all my wood working.

Who can tell if a rail is 3/4" or 19mm or even better, stop converting and make your rails a nice round 20mm........Same for legs, instead of 2 inch use 50mm......On and on.

When I bought my new planer I had to specify mm or inch gauge so I went metric...............And as for whether plywood is metric or imperial, it's neither.

It actually is metric in thickness in North America (has been for a long time as the Plywood Manufacturers in NA went metric), however it's plywood so it's 19mm plus or minus whatever. Doesn't matter what you measure for a dado, it will need shims and different sheets are actually different.

So, make me a metric enthusiast...............Rod.

[Lex Boegen]

I'm comfortable with the metric system, but the vast majority of my tools are Imperial (USA) in dimensions. I do have a metric tape measure, but my drill bits, saw blades, Incra LS-17 fence, table saw rip fence scale, etc. are all Imperial, so that's what I generally use. Many times I wished that I'd wake up one morning and discover that Imperial was all just a bad dream and everything in the USA was suddenly metric.

[ian maybury]

Some of the issue with the US changing i suspect is that while measures for basic applications are fine, it gets a bit more complicated if you have a large indigenous industry producing all sorts of engineered parts and products based on inches mostly for the domestic market. The market is so enormous that even if domestic manufacturing isn't what it was many overseas suppliers can still afford to gear up to suit.

There's something resistant about the US mind set too. I always remember being told as a young development engineer in the early 80s doing potato processing machinery for US markets to (a) make it look and ideally be twice as strong as it needs to be (without it costing anything extra to build, mind you), and (b) use nothing on it that can't be bought in a corner hardware in deepest Idaho or the like. Tracking down UNC fasteners in Dublin in the early 80s was a challenge...

The UK faced the same problem, but with a rapidly fading engineering sector and importing a lot from Europe - i suspect it would have been much harder for them to hold out.

Here in Ireland it's a non issue - we have almost no engineering industry, so we take whatever the norm is from outside..

ian

[Mark Ashmeade]

Why complicate matters with fractions? That's just going backwards. For the occasions you want to measure something less than 1mm, all you have to do is move the decimal point.

Well I have a rule that's 1/2mm calibrated, and a set of digital calipers that'll do 1/2mm, but other than that, I have nothing to measure 0.4mm with...

[William Adams]

Inches and feet --- metric always results in bizarre decimals when one needs to divide things into halves, fourths, or worse yet thirds or sixths (if need be I'll break out a Schaedler Rule for points / picas)

[Chris Tsutsui]

I think it's a government economic plan to make me have to buy all my sockets and wrenches in both metric and sae.

[Chris Parks]

Inches and feet --- metric always results in bizarre decimals when one needs to divide things into halves, fourths, or worse yet thirds or sixths (if need be I'll break out a Schaedler Rule for points / picas)

That's news to me as I have been using metric for over 30 years having converted from imperial. What is half of 29/64, is that not weird? Anyone who has experienced and used the imperial system would not willingly go back.

[Mark Ashmeade]

Anyone who has experienced and used the imperial system would not willingly go back.

Are you sure about that?

[Pat Barry]

You can tell its the dead of winter when the annual metric vs english discussion thread begins. LOL

[Gregg Feldstone]

I use both, due to having several European tools, ie Festool, Bosch, etc. which are graduated with metric scales.
Why do metric rules never seem to come with graduations smaller than 1mm?

[rick sawyers]

I like the imperial because of the fact that an inch can be divided down in half andin half again (to a 16th or a 32nd on a tape measure) and all these fractions (denominators to be exact) are multiples of 4. 4 to me is the basis for the imperial system and a square has four sides. A square corner is 90 degrees. 4 times 2 is 8 which when divided into 360(which is the degrees in a circle) equals 45 which is the cut in degrees to make when you are putting together two pieces of wood to make a square corner.

I am only saying, that to me the imperial system emphasizes the multiples of 4 and relates to geometry (circles and squares) and that is more relative to woodworking for me. Making things proportionate is a skill I have gained over time and using numbers has been very important to learning this skill. Everyone develops their own system of thinking and using wood--I can only guess how metric figures this way.

Metric is based on 10s and is probably great for addition, but when you divide 1 centimeter in half you have 5mm. Divide that in half and you are either .25cm or 2.5 mm; divide in half again and it is an eighth of a cm or .125mm (or 1+1/8thmm); divide again and you have .0625cm or the equivalent of 1/16thcm or .625mm (or 5/8ths mm?)

Point is, as soon as you divide in half with metric, you are into fractions and might as well use any measuring system with anything for a unit. As I understand it, the imperial system is based on 1 inch divided in half which goes 1/2, 1/4 ,1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, etc. When I am designing things or laying things out this "scale" is very handy and I use it quite often. I don't use 1/10th or 1/5th of anything anymore than 1/7th or 1/9th etc. One third of a foot is 4 inches and that I use, but not as often is 1/2 or 1/4th.

This is my half-baked argument for using Imperial--intuitive division and multiples of 4.

[Mark Ashmeade]

A square corner is 90 degrees. 4 times 4 is 16 which when divided into 360(which is the degrees in a circle) equals 22.5 which is the cut in degrees to make when you are putting together two pieces of wood to make a square corner.

Agreed that 360/16=22.5. However, two pieces of wood with 22.5 deg cuts facing each other would give you a 45, no?

Years ago, I was in 16 Signal Regiment in Germany. Took my about a decade (i.e. well after I left!) to realize why the bar was called the "4 Square Club".

[Chris Parks]

Are you sure about that?

Of course I am sure about it and anyone who is honest about it will tell you the same thing, it is a far easier task to calculate and measure in metric. Why anyone wants anything finer than 1mm when woodworking is a mystery, wood moves more than that when the humidity changes 5% says he tongue in cheek. Are you telling me that you have seriously used both systems and not just for a week but an extended period of time like a year maybe and then reverted to imperial? I have lived half my life, or just about, under both systems and talking to others in and around trades that require measuring no one would go back.

[Peter Bell]

This thread reminds me of my late father. When giving me a measurement it might end like this. it is 120 cms and half an inch.

I have a number of steel rulers in my shed. I grabbed one of them last week as I had to copy some plans onto timber. the plans were from the States and one measurement was for 10 1/4 inches.

No problem until I went to find the quarte mark on the rule, it did not have any. Most are divided up in 8.s or 1tth or 32 or even 64ths. Not this one , I had to count up the dividing lines and there was ten Now, i have neen seen a measurement written as 10 .25 inches for 101/4 inches.

but this steel rule is talking like that.

So the rule was part imperial and metric imperial. Remind me not to us the imperial side again.

Pete

[Curt Harms]

I've always worked in imperial but consider this: I have a span to divide into 6 equal parts. The span measures 5 3/8" or 137 mm. Which is easier/quicker? Cheap/cell phone calculators are allowed.