How do measure things? metric or imperial?

[Wedg1e]

great fun [NOT )teach u at school imperial then go to college and its all gone metric

What was it like in the olden days, grandad?

 

[Wedg1e]

Hello all,

I have a metric lathe and an imperial miller so work in both. If I measure something when fabricating I'll sometimes pick whatever system comes out closest, so I suppose I'm quite flexible.

Alec

I have a mill with an X-Y table that is scaled in Millimetres but the quill downfeed is in Inches. Or is it the other way around, I forget...

 

[Wedg1e]

If a woman askes the size of your 'tool' , centimetres are more impressive than inches.

 

[Wedg1e]

..and then there's the old communications problem: years ago we needed to ship an x-ray system to the Middle East so the chief measured it up, wrote some numbers on a Post-It and gave it to our office bird to order a crate from the local crate-builders.
A couple of days later a delivery guy walks in and tells us he has a crate for us; I ask if he needs me to help him get it off the truck and he says 'Only if you have a forklift'.
Eh?, I say, it should be easy enough for two. So he takes me outside and point to a garden shed-sized construction on his flatbed.
Simon measured in centimetres, the crate people used inches... no mention on the Post-It apart from the size.

 

[Cobbler]

If a woman askes the size of your 'tool' , centimetres are more impressive than inches.

If your my size you have to use millimetres

 

[daleyd]

..and then there's the old communications problem: years ago we needed to ship an x-ray system to the Middle East so the chief measured it up, wrote some numbers on a Post-It and gave it to our office bird to order a crate from the local crate-builders.
A couple of days later a delivery guy walks in and tells us he has a crate for us; I ask if he needs me to help him get it off the truck and he says 'Only if you have a forklift'.
Eh?, I say, it should be easy enough for two. So he takes me outside and point to a garden shed-sized construction on his flatbed.
Simon measured in centimetres, the crate people used inches... no mention on the Post-It apart from the size.

I ordered some Tie Wraps before we went on a 6 month deployment, ordered what I thought was a sensible amount with a few extra's - I thought a 1000 should do the job.

Had a main broadcast announcement "Petty Officer Dunlop, you have stores on the jetty". I trundled off up to find 4 massive boxes, I had ordered 1000 packets of 1000 tie wraps each. They saw me out for the next 3 years, I was giving them away to anyone who would have some

 

[Wendelspanswick]

..and then there's the old communications problem: years ago we needed to ship an x-ray system to the Middle East so the chief measured it up, wrote some numbers on a Post-It and gave it to our office bird to order a crate from the local crate-builders.
A couple of days later a delivery guy walks in and tells us he has a crate for us; I ask if he needs me to help him get it off the truck and he says 'Only if you have a forklift'.
Eh?, I say, it should be easy enough for two. So he takes me outside and point to a garden shed-sized construction on his flatbed.
Simon measured in centimetres, the crate people used inches... no mention on the Post-It apart from the size.

That reminds me of the Stonehenge scene from Spinal Tap!

 

[wheresmejumper]

I heard it on another forum but,
Metalworkers use mm
Carpenters use inches
Masons are just happy if the house ends up on the right side of the road

 

[wheresmejumper]

The weird ones are pipe,imperial bore metric wall.or getting 90mm liners machined 10 thou.
I use metric 99% of the time but imperial fits better every now and then.my trick is to remember 1/16 is 1.6mm and then it's an easy conversion

 

[Maker]

If a woman askes the size of your 'tool' , centimetres are more impressive than inches.

By that logic, angstrom units are even more impressive, 1 mm = 10,000,000Å.

 

[ronan]

I have a mill with an X-Y table that is scaled in Millimetres but the quill downfeed is in Inches. Or is it the other way around, I forget...

A real pain can be getting a job drawing in inches and having metric machines, you are perpetually converting the dimensions from imperial to metric, and having to jot down the results.

 

[fixerupper]

Tell me about it .. in the 70s I worked for Woods of Colchester cutting up steel on a Cincinnati guilotine ...the old drawings were in imperial, the new drawings were in metric, the machine was in decimal inches, the steel was what ever was cheap , and the computer generated tolerances were in metric ...a whole page of maths before I could cut any thing ....jeff

 

[wookie]

my trick is to remember 1/16 is 1.6mm and then it's an easy conversion

You forgot one.... 1/16" is 1.6mm is 16 guage

 

[Spark plug]

So what's the story behind letter and number drills? Never understood that one.

 

[brightspark]

british and american drill sizes . metric will cover all sizes now. drawings in model engineering still show number and letter drill sizeshttp://www.smithbearing.com/images/pdf/ENG-FractionalChart.pdf

 

[ronan]

I used to get the Presto charts free from the local engineers suppliers, they were well worth having and hanging on the wall.

http://www.presto-tools.co.uk/uploads/general_files/355-counsellor_2013_v01.pdf

 

[graffian]

I used to get the Presto charts free from the local engineers suppliers, they were well worth having and hanging on the wall

Drill service have a rack of charts next to the door, I used to stick them up rather than paint the walls.

 

[Wedg1e]

A real pain can be getting a job drawing in inches and having metric machines, you are perpetually converting the dimensions from imperial to metric, and having to jot down the results.

DROs my son, DROs

 

[Wedg1e]

So what's the story behind letter and number drills? Never understood that one.

Perhpas it was thought easier to look for the letter A than misread 11/16" as 1/16" and drill a slightly oversize hole

 

[MattF]

...the machine was in decimal inches,

Now that's one system of measurement I detest. Metric or Imperial I'm fine with, but whichever 'tard thought decimal inches was a good idea wants a good slap, IMHO.