Imperial or metric?

[Trevor Wentzel]

Living in Canada and being a child of the late 70's mostly a hybrid system is used. I use KM's for distance, but i can use miles just fine in the US.
Weight in pounds, and height in feel/inches...but cm and mm make more sense.... it's whatever you are used to that makes the most sense.
Helping our visiting American friends with Metric time is always a treat... that's 62 min on the hour.

[Jim Koepke]

You can't just flick your wrist and command any industry to change to a new system, particularly when the majority of the workforce is accustomed to a system that has been in use for almost 200 years.

The typical way this can be changed is for all government agencies to rewrite all their purchase orders to require metric components or designations. This would take an act of Congress or possibly an Executive order. An Executive order would only extend to one branch of the federal government.

America allready decided in the 1960's to go metric. They should be ready by now.

The American government and some government agencies decided long before 1960 to use metric. Even in the early days of the United States we didn't have a set system of measurement. Thomas Jefferson did attempt to introduce a measurement system based on the length of a pendulum with a one second arc.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_f..._United_States

In coordination with scientists in France, Jefferson selected the seconds pendulum at 45° latitude as the basic reference. For technical reasons, he proposed using a uniform rod as the pendulum rather than a traditional pendulum. The pendulum was estimated to be 39.14912 English inches long (in the inches of that time

I just have the idea that changing over would save a bunch of money.

It would render all my measuring devices obsolete. If all the dowels and other things were only available in metric, then all my drill bits would have to be replaced.

In the long run, the added business activity and conversions might save money at a future time. In the short run it would be inconvenient for many people.

Currently much of our system is changing. The automotive industry uses parts from all over the world and eventually all the parts in an American made car will be in metric designations. Tire designations are almost all now in metric.

What are the biggest problems?

We currently have butter sold by the pound. A nice convenient round number. Does the dairy industry want to start selling half kilos of butter? Would the public feel a little cheated if butter started being sold at a nice round number of 450 grams?

Milk is in quarts, most people might not like the idea of 3.8 liters. Not sure the dairy industry could change all of their equipment to start handling 4 liter bottles.

The beverage industry is split. There are still 12 and 16 ounce bottles, but they also sell liter size designated containers.

The dairy industry changed the packaging on ice cream not long ago. They made the packages a bit smaller. That could have been a good time to go metric.

Just live with the idea that some people are stubborn and when it comes to changing they way they have been doing things all their lives, they may be just a bit more stubborn.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

...the majority of Americans who actually use a measuring system on a daily basis don't have a problem with the Imperial System. Its simply feet, inches, fractions and decimals which as natural ... as walking. I wouldn't change it for anything, I refuse to purchase any machine that doesn't support the Imperial System, the rare times that I have to convert is just a nuisance and its probably the same for those in other countries..

Good on you Keith, now lets call it what it is - the American measuring system. I'm sick of the term Imperial. USA USA USA!

[Nicholas Lawrence]

Hey, America allready decided in the 1960's to go metric. They should be ready by now.

"America" does not equal "the federal government." They are two different things in a way that I suspect is not always intuitive for our friends overseas. Here the federal goverment may "decide" something, but that does not mean it will actually happen if it does not make sense from the point of view of the individual states, local goverments, and private citizens.

Nick

[Pete Staehling]

I use feet and inches most of the time because it is easier with a lot of the tools that I have. Also my customers think in feet and inches, so some key measurements are always given in inches. I was using metric for a while for some operations (mostly laying out fret positions on musical instruments), but for those particular operations I switched to decimal inches.

[Keith Outten]

The American people have never made the decision to convert to the metric system. Our Government established a committe that was supposed to assist the conversion process but their efforts were ignored so the committee was disbanded.

Honestly, in my shop the conversion would put me out of business. All of my machines and my measuring and test equipment are Imperial, replacing everything is an economic impossibility in my lifetime. I expect that most small to medium size companies are in a similar situation and of course you have to consider employees that would resist the change and the ratio of mistakes that would be a burden during the conversion period.

I can't see any cost savings in any scenario that involves converting to the metric system in industrial shops that are already invested in the Imperial system.
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[Keith Outten]

Good on you Keith, now lets call it what it is - the American measuring system. I'm sick of the term Imperial. USA USA USA!

I agree with Pat, our system is probably better described as the American Measuring System when you consider that we use so many different systems in a variety of industries.
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[Halgeir Wold]

I love these metric vs imperial debates..
You seem to forget that one of the main driving forces behind the french units revolution was to bring forth a unified system, as opposed to the downright jungle of different measures that ruled those days. Even the same unit varied in size between regions and countries, causing trouble and actual fraud.
The basics of this discussion is that we mostly prefer what we are used to. I graduated in electronics in the mid 70s, when computers were really booming, and we counted numbers in decimal, binary, hex and octal, depending on which system you worked on, and conversions were quick, once you got used to it.
Back in the late medievals, the old measurements of thumbs, feets, cubits etc. ruled, but where different from country to country. Norway was a vassal state under Denmark, and in 1615 the official danish-norwegian cubit was standardized by law to 24 danish thumbs, -this thumb has later been defined as 26.17 mm, but still the old norwegian cubit of 55 cm, i.e. 20 thumbs of 27.5mm exists up until today, and both are still being used in traditional boat building, since the length of these boats are defined in cubits, and the rest of the measurements are proportions of the main unit. I deliberately use the old term "thumb", as the inch is a defined size. The old scandinavian term for cubit, is alen ( old norse: alinn), meaning the length of a mans underarm, - elbow to finger tip. ( There are also differet alinns, partly depending on which finger you refer to.. ) As you see, standardization has its advantages....
I've spent all my professional life in space related work, and meters, millimeters, inches, feet, miles, knots, meters/second - it just does't matter when you get used to it.
However - I do prefer metric - that's what i grew up with.... ( not quite true,- all our boats were in feet, and construction lumber was in inches....)

[lowell holmes]

One-third of an inch is two (computer) picas, or one can use a scale ruler: http://www.amazon.com/Staedtler-R-En.../dp/B00006IAOX

I don't think I ever made a cut at 1/3". If I needed to, I would draw parallel lines at 1" and divide that space into 3 units.

You do know that many engineering drawings are drawn with decimals of inches and there are three sided scales divided into 10ths, 20ths, 30ths , ., ., and so on. That is to say drawings are often drawn to 1" = 10', 1" = 20', etc.

Drawings to be used in Europe will often have dimensions expressed in ft and inches as well as metric. I know this to be the case because I've made the drawings.

[jamie shard]

Even the same unit varied in size between regions and countries, causing trouble and actual fraud.

I only heard about this recently and it really does explain why Europe transitioned to metric. Imagine every state in the U.S. with a different sized inch and you could easily imagine everyone saying, "let's forget about who is right and let's all just switch to metric."

[Jim Koepke]

I agree with Pat, our system is probably better described as the American Measuring System when you consider that we use so many different systems in a variety of industries.
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It was my impression it already was the American Measuring System it is just called the American National Standards Institute.

With all the talk about measuring thirds and such it seemed a picture is better than words:

Measuring Thirds.jpg

Just as easy with metric or inch denominated rulers.

The metric ruler didn't want to hold still for the picture.

jtk

[Marty Schlosser]

Hey, Shawn,

I don't agree with your premise for dividing metric measurements. We're all used to dividing decimal based numerical systems by 2, 3, 9, or whatever, right, as that's what our number system is based on. By extension therefore, it's very natural for us to easily visualize the resultant fractional figures (13.6mm, for instance).

I grew up with both imperial and Metric. I can use either. I typically use imperial as that is what the tools around here are found. There are pros and cons to both (or maybe it is always a compromise). Neither work well when dividing by 3.

[jamie shard]

The thing about thirds is it isn't so much about measuring it, it's about the next step: chopping out the mortise, putting in the panel groove, etc. Ideally, all of the tools used would be matched, so everything lines up. Obviously any sized mortise and groove can be made, it's just easier if the dimension comes right off the tool. I'm sure there are "classic" metric sizes which serve to approximate thirds in ~2.5 cm stock.

[Allan Speers]

The American people have never made the decision to convert to the metric system. Our Government established a committe that was supposed to assist the conversion process but their efforts were ignored so the committee was disbanded.
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Remember back in the day (1980's, maybe?) When USA road signs started appearing with both miles and meters? Some food labelling also had both imperial & metric.

This was supposed to help Americans learn metric, by getting us used to some common "benchmark" sizes.


Unfortunately, the idiots behind this project decided to put the imperial measurements FIRST, which meant that no one needed to pay attention to the metric number that followed. Hence, it was a huge waste of time & money, and a complete failure. It's rare that I'll actually knock government employees (privatization of health care & the prison system are both travesties) but in this particular case ......

[Mel Fulks]

Standards did vary but it was also just more dificult to achieve accuracy. But people were careful and frugal,the book on the Stubbs tool company describes a paper memo about a ton of iron that was 5 pounds off. And in modern times ...I once pumped more gasoline into my car than the capacity of the tank, and I didnt push the car to the station. I drove it. Happened in one of the mafia areas. Forgot to mention stubbs memo was early 19th century.