New Paolini Pocket Rule from Woodpeckers

[Kev]

i had a funny situation today.

i was helping the plumber put in some pipes. i measure it in metric (metric only tape and phone calculator) but converted  it to imperial as i thought he wouldnt bother with metric. he converted everything into metric and cut the pipes then wrote the length in imperial . i then had to convert back to metric to know where they went.
shame we didnt realise what was going on , it would have saved a lot of fooling around.

All I can say is "death to inches" ... I feel a lot taller in centimetres.

 

[andvari]

i had a funny situation today.

i was helping the plumber put in some pipes. i measure it in metric (metric only tape and phone calculator) but converted  it to imperial as i thought he wouldnt bother with metric. he converted everything into metric and cut the pipes then wrote the length in imperial . i then had to convert back to metric to know where they went.
shame we didnt realise what was going on , it would have saved a lot of fooling around.

That is pretty funny. My first job included time working as an engineer in a very old manufacturing plant that had been started in about 1860 by two brothers from Belgium. They had been on the metric system from the get-go, some 120 years before the time I started working there. They loved it too and had no desire to switch to Imperial. It was quite the thing to see 100 year old pieces of equipment marked in metric units in the plant museum.

A lot of people don't realize that the US almost had the 1st decimal system for weights and measures. Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to set a system of weights and measures, and Thomas Jefferson, at the time Secretary of State, being the genius he was proposed a decimal system of weights and measures. Congress didn't take it as seriously as they should have so we ended up keeping the old Imperial system  :'(. Ten years later the French adopted their metric system. The interesting thing about this is that the idea of a decimal system of measure may have come into France from Franklin and Jefferson during the time they spent there as ambassadors - they were actively promoting it to the French Court and scientific societies. The French revolution of course provided the chance to put in the new ideas.

Fortunately Jefferson's proposals on currency were accepted and the US became the first nation with a decimal currency.

http://metricationmatters.com/docs/USAMetricSystemHistory.pdf

http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/currency

 

[mouppe]

Got my pocket rule two days ago. On its first day my five year-old dropped it and one of the screws broke. Fortunately I was able to glue it together and it seems to work ok.

It's a nice little tool, much handier than a 6" combi square for marking out. I just wish I had ordered the 18" rule as well- if anyone is having buyer's remorse, PM me!

 

[zapdafish]

the 18" ones havent shipped yet. I was told they will start sometime next week. You can try and give woodpeckers a call. They make some extra's of all the one timers, if you time it right, you can pick one of those up.