guage vs. linear measure

[Vic Dura]

Just curious about something. Is there a relationship between "gauge" and linear measure such as inches or centimeters? Is the diameter of a

14-gauge wire the same thickness as 14-gauge metal sheet?

[Duane Bozarth]

No, as Vic says, wire and thickness "gage" measurements are different scales. To make it even more interesting, there are differing gage scales as well (at least six in my Perry's).

[gfretwell]

Nope. They may seem similar but they are totally unrelated.

[anoldfart2]

Are you sure about this? I always thought 14 gauge steel was the same thickness as 14 gauge wire. Now I wish I had a micrometer and some

14ga steel on hand. I got lots of wire.

[Duane Bozarth]

AWG (American Wire Gage) 14 --> 0.064" USS (US Std for Sheet/plate) 14 --> 0.078"

Source: Perry's Chem E Handbook Table 1-10

There are four others as well all of which are slightly different from each other...

[Vic Dura]

What are the six in your Perry's? I can think of three:

1) wire diameter 2) steel thickness 3) shot gun cartridge

Oh, and thanks for the spell correction of "gage". It's amazing how easily I can make myself look like a fool.

[Duane Bozarth]

Rather than being totally different applications, they're varying wire and thickness standards most of which have proprietary backgrounds from early manufacturing days before national/international standards were common/established. There are relatively small differences (in absolute terms) between these, but the differences can be significant in close tolerance applications. For typical household wiring, the differences are not significant.

- AWG or Brown & Sharpe (normally non-ferrous wire and sheet altho footnote shows sometimes used for iron wire as well)

- US Steel Wire or Washburn&Moen or Roebling or Am. Steel&Wire - Birmingham (BWG for steel wire) or Stubs Iron Wire - Imperial Standard Wire Gage

- US Standard - Standard Birmingham

I'm sure there are probably others--I didn't look at what are current ISO standards, for example.

Totally different scale and I don't have data at hand.

[Duane Bozarth]

US standard gage is-- 4' 8-1/2". Don't have old narrow gage or other such as British, etc.

[George E. Cawthon]

Humbug. Gage and gauge are interchangeable although some disciplines have arbitrarily standardized on one. Always fun to get two disciplines that have standardized on different spellings to start fighting over the spelling.

[George E. Cawthon]

how about railroad gauge, is that in your book?

[Vic Dura]

You're righ, at least according to Random House Webster's dictionary:

gage, n., v.t., gaged, gag·ing. (chiefly in technical use) gauge.

I didn't know that.

[Duane Bozarth]

....

As for my use of 'gage', I got indoctrinated in eng'g school so far back it's ingrained indelibly...

[Duane Bozarth]

But it strikes me--how/why did they come up w/ this specific dimension? The 1/2", for example, on a length nearly 5' seems incongruous.