Wow, I'm impressed! Especially since rulers like that can be bought in any hardware store for at least the past 40 years...
Meindert
But doesn't everyone in the US need a good metric folding rule? Just how big is a 2x4 in millimeters? After working with that sloppy old English system of inches and feet, not to mention fractions, for more than fifty years, I am really up and ready to change my whole mind set. And, if I convert to metric, I can write a letter of complaint to my old elementary school for forcing me to suffer through learning fractions in the fourth grade because I won't need to know anything about them anymore. Of course, I will have to get a metric mic so that I can re-estimate saw kerfs and drill sizes.
On second thought, I already have at least six folding rules in my drawer that are covered in those dreadful inches along with several sharp edged tape measures and some old combination squares that seem to do me just fine.
The metrics will just have to slide in my workshop in the good ole US of A.
Bill Waller New Eagle, PA
snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net
Bill Waller responds:
Not everyone here is from the U.S.
I know I've seen metric folders around the U.S. market, but so far, none have turned up. Ah. Lufkin, LFK062CME . Among others.
Charlie Self "Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen." Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
And my corner hardware store doesn't spam newsgroups. Decisions, decisions...
I've got two and one with the little sliding brass ruler-ette on the end. Got them at a flea market for a few dollars for use when I can't find my metal tapes. Say, isn't that big, long pocket on the right leg of my carpenters' pants built to hold those folding tapes? Larry
That, my friend, is exactly what that pocket is for
Starrett has some metric rules and I've bought a number (folding, straight and tapes) in a fascinating, very large hardware store in Munich across from Viktualienmarkt.
RB
/RANT WARNING
Out of all the people in the world we ( the US) have the majority of them that use that old, antiquated english system. Yet the problem is one of spatial reference. Let me explain :
How long is 3 1/2 inches ? I bet I would get a lot of answers, based upon peoples experience. Such as, about the length of my middle finger (no pun or sarcasm intended), the height of a tall shot glass, etc. If would say how long is 89 mm, then everyone would be stumped, though the two are pratically the same. Now there is one reference that everyone should know. How much is 2 liters of liquid ? Thanks to the cola industry we know that one. Now tell me how many ounces that is, you might not know (though some bright people might). My point is, we relate measurements to our every day lives. If we have not made the connection between millimeters and the length of your spoon, then millimeters are foreign to us.
We have been taught, from early on, how to relate what we encounter in everyday life with what system of measurement we use. If we are taught, from early on, to use the metric system, we would be very familiar with it. Instead we expect the school system to teach this to the kids (abiet without the support of American business and government). What do we expect ? Miracles ?
/ END OF RANT
I will now go back to my 2 hp chainsaw with a 18" bar and fill it with 30 oz. of gasoline so I can cut down a 12" diameter tree.
JAW
everyday life with what system of measurement we
be very familiar with it. Instead we expect the
American business and government). What do we
IIRC, back in the '70s they were going to teach metric and we were going to change? Some of the highways signs had both metric/English measurements and even the thermometers at the bank started giving Celsius. I think we got there about 12% of the way and gave up.
I'm ready to change. Years ago I would have fought against it, but then I was forced to think metric with imported machinery. Once you use it, you never want to know if it should be a 29/32" wrench or a 7/8. You know the
17 mm is the right one. Ed
I remember. I was teaching science/math in a rural highschool back then and trying to integrate the metric system into the kids lives as required by the current educational policy. I had a parent/teacher conference with one guy and he didn't like my teaching metrics to his daughter. His idea was that all the communist countries used the system and it was a communist plot( or such.) He certainly wasn't aware that way back...IIRC Thomas Jefferson? ...tried to introduce a similar 'metric' system, however, congress accepted the current metric system as usable in trade about 1866.
Larry
There are four sizes of wrench, too big, too small, just right, and crescent.
Yeah, life's hard..... :-))
Meindert
Yep, my folks even bought a car in the seventies where the KPH numbers were larger than the MPH.
I don't think Big Brother warned us how much work the change would be, so once it became a PITA, we gave up.
Joe
Big Joe notes:
Well, for many of us who bounced back and forth from metric to Imperial, it really wasn't much more than a slight nuisance. But it also provided zip, diddly squat for benefits for Joe and Jane Sixpack, so there was no reason they should tolerate even that.
Charlie Self "The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind." Jacques Barzun
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