Apprentice and Hex keys

[FMurtz]

In USA.

[FMurtz]

They have to get knowledge from somewhere.

[tabbypurr]

If they've got to 16 or 18 without realising there are imperial measurements, I doubt they're about to get any knowledge anywhere.

NT

[John Rumm]

Its sold in 300mm (i.e metric foot) increments starting at 300mmm, so

2.0m is not a standard length. 1.8 or 2.1 would be your choices.

[PeterC]

Had a problem when re-roofing a brick-built shed (timbers going/gone and sheets cracked a bit). The timbers were ~70 years old and 2x3, so unobtainable nowadays. Combined with the hard mortar that had been shovelled in to fill all the gaps, I spent ages with a an SDS chisel getting it even enough for a full timber frame and to fit the 'generous' 46x72 mm. Even as a smallish child I was upset that 2" wood wasn't 2" - what part of lying is acceptable in trade descriptions?

[Tim Lamb]

Likely before it was sawn: the saw kerf included in the measurement. Trees have exceptionally funny rules:-)

>

[Brian Gaff]

The screws were not actually hex at all? Brian

[Brian Gaff]

I remember that I bought some from Tandy once. There seemed to be a lot of keys I thought, and as you say, when I checked we had both imperial and metric. Obviously, Tandy being a US company had sourced sets with all the keys in all the places it sold. The keys were fine, but the way of attaching tem to the large ring they were on was cruddly a kind of coiled spring around the hex , which meant you could take them off of course, but it was a sod of a job to put them back again which in the end meant a lot of them got lost! Brian

[NY]

I can understand it. Modern engineering uses metric for all official measurements (as opposed to "folk units" such as "oh, about 4 foot eight and a half"). I'm 55 years old - old enough to have grown up with imperial as folk units and to estimate in those units. But young enough that if I have to measure anything with a ruler or scales, I always use millimetres or grammes (and being British rather than American, I spell the latter "gramme", not "gram", but that's another story!).

Nowadays I'd expect tools, plumbing pipes, drills etc to be sold in metric sizes - or else to have fairly clear wording that they were imperial, for use with existing legacy installations.

This only applies to the UK; the USA clings to the imperial system like grim death, even sometimes in scientific and engineering fields. I've seen scientific papers which use units such as slugs and poundals.

I'm probably weird that I know my height in feet and inches but not in centimetres, but if I had to measure my height I'd always do so in centimetres. Younger people probably have less "feel" for measurements in feet and inches; in a few more generations the imperial system may have been forgotten about, which is a shame because it has served us well, even if numerically it is a crap system because no two units for the same physical quantity are related by the only base that is meaningful to us - base 10, because we have 10 fingers (inc thumbs) and 10 toes - so calculation is tedious. Would you prefer to add up a column of prices in £p or in £sd, with all the latter's carry-after-you-reach-12 and carry-after-you-reach-20 complications.

[NY]

I can imagine that nowadays, the imperial system is dismissed with a few throwaway phrases like "Years ago, there used to be other units called feet, inches, ounces, pounds etc, but they were a pain to work with because they were related by conversion factors that weren't 10. Be aware that they exist, and be prepared to convert to/from them if necessary, but treat them as folk units."

Any system which doesn't even have an integer relationship between volumetric and linear measurement is a bit dodgy: there are 277.419 cubic inches in a (UK) gallon. For some reason, there are exactly 231 cubic inches in a US gallon, which is odd because I thought the conversion between UK and US was 0.8 UK gall = 1 US gall since the US pint is 16 rather than 20 fluid ounces. Ah: I see now - the US and UK fluid ounces are slightly different sizes. It's like troy, avoirdupois and apothecaries ounces all over again - different trades define their units in slightly different ways. A bit of a mess!

[NY]

Yes those Allen keys on springs are a pain. The best set of Allen keys I have has them all attached to a common shaft on a hand-sized handle. You fold out the one you want and have a nice big handle to use to turn it. I still use the small spring ones if I need to work in a confined space, but the ones on a handle are much easier for everything else.

(that's a photo of the Allen key set)

Yes it is a real sod trying to fit Allen keys back into their springs.

[Robin]

As a child I was told it's best to think of it as the _name_ of the timber. When it's sawn it measures 4x2 so it's called 4x2. By the time it's sold it's very possibly drier and smaller. If it's planed it's smaller still. But it's name stays the same.

[spuorgelgoog]

It's actually divide-and-carry which is worse if you don't know your 12 times table properly.

51d is 3d down and carry 4s over.

The "Back in time for school" programme last night (BBC2 I think) was teaching in centimetres "in the 1940s" which is wrong in so many ways.

Owain

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm surprised he didn't wonder why there were two sets of apparently identical allen keys to choose from in the shop.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I far prefer a sort of socket set with allen 'sockets' IMHO, less likely to lose the odd one. And far more convenient to use.

[T i m]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2019 15:14:20 +1100, FMurtz [e-mail] wrote: <snip>

I was fortunate to grow up in an environment with a workshop full of all sorts of (mainly woodworking) tools and a Father who had both inherited loads and bought more of his own.

I was also 'press ganged' into helping him use them and using them for him when helping him.

And with my Uncle who did more stuff with / for me, like building my go-cart for / with me and helping me update / repair it etc.

So, our daughter has grown up being more aware of such things and often surprises people by the things (tools / processes) she knows something about.

The, the other day someone held up a brick and asked 'what is this bit called?', (pointing to the hollow). 'Frog', she replied. ;-)

The problem with being aware of the range of tools available to allow people to do a job better / easier / quicker is when others don't have them. ;-(

Like the other day, when helping someone do some engineering work she asked if they had a (hand) de-burring tool. She asked because I have one and she has used it quite a bit, not only helping me or me helping her but on her own projects.

By allowing her to help me (or try stuff) when she asked when she was young also helps her judge just how difficult a particular job might be and what the chances are of her (or whoever she is with) being able to complete it successfully (tools / facilities / materials / skills etc) now she's older.

As you say they have to learn somewhere. I started off with an imperial set of feeler gauges and then bought a metric set because the world was changing that way. Because many of us here *have* lived though the imperial to metric conversion we are better placed when dealing with things to be ready for some of the stuff that has come about historically. 1220mm x 2440mm sheet materials anyone? ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[FMurtz]

Easy if you turn the right way,sort of screw them in

[newshound]

And credit for being prepared to spend a bit more.

[T i m]

<snip>

+1

It just 'unwinds' the spring enough to allow the tool back in.

I prefer tool-rolls now though for that sort of thing.

Cheers, T i m

[charles]

I was taught about centimeters in physics in the 1940s.