Metric

[David Nebenzahl]

On 9/8/2009 5:32 AM Robatoy spake thus:

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[Robert Bonomi]

Tevye says: TRADITION!!

[Ed Pawlowski]

No, you are saying that. I"m saying many people work with metric as their standard for thier industry. It is not t he strange and scary unit that some people are afraid to use.

Why would I want to take drugs when I can just push your buttons?

Evidently, people in other countries used that as one of the reason they did not want to import US build cars. Univerality (and the associated money savings) allows for the ease of use of the same component for a car build in Detroit, Tokyo, or Berlin.

I had little exposure to metric. It was not taught in schoold in the 50's and 60's and I never had reason to use it on a regular basis. With new machines, I had to use it every day. Pressure gauges in bars, linear mesure in mm, etc.

They did not want to work with metric. Aluminum plate has to be 10mm thick so you either buy it or machine down the outer perimeter, an extra step. It meant u sing metric fasteners, and the resulting extra inventory. Their loss.

I'm not in favor of passing laws. I'm in favor of using a system that allows me to deal effectively in WORLD markets. Just smart business.

[J. Clarke]

Straw man. If you want to use metric use it. It's a free country.

<plonk> <remainder snipped>

[Bill]

Another example from angle measuring...

Most math people like to use radians to measure angles. The military, at least, the army, often likes to use mills (6400 in a circle). Most people prefer degrees, or, the less formal, "about like that".

At least in the first 2 systems there are, or were, advantages. Using mills was designed, I think, to eliminate the need for decimal points.

Bill

[Stuart]

I thought he was a composer ;-)

[Stuart]

<SNIP>

Love it, that's one for the archive :-)

[Stuart]

Nor is it uncommon to find metric rules marked in 1/2mm.

However, this is a woodwork group not an engineering group and such accuracy has no use when dealing with a material that shrinks and expands so much with temperature and humidity

[Stuart]

Except that the french, being french, got it wrong as usual. It was supposed to be but they measured it incorrectly!

[Stuart]

50x100 but still just as nominal!

[Stuart]

And metric countries only use millimeters, meters and kilometers in normal every day life so what's your argument

(thats one less to worry about and simple conversion between any of them)

[Stuart]

Actually he would say 12 mil and instead of "an inch and 15 thirty-seconds" "37 mil"

Your point was?

He would say drive "one kay"

Actually I don't know what they do say in France, Germany, Italy, Holland...... because I don't speak any foriegn languages (though I do have a broad understanding of American). It's what we would say in the UK except that we use miles :-)

[Morris Dovey]

Unless, of course, such accuracy is actually needed...

...sometimes engineering and woodworking /do/ overlap. :)

[notbob]

It's practically the cradle of civilization!

nb