Used Metric for the first time on project

[GPowers]

Just got done building a carcass for a Sysport and use all metric dimensions for its construction. I could not believe how much easer it was to use metric over imperial measurements.  I never realized how frustrating and inaccurate Imperial measurements are. It was much easer and quicker to do all measurements in just millimeters. No fractions, on inches vs Feet etc. Just how many millimeters something is.

So for me it is good by to fractions, no more 3/16th or 7/8th or 3/4 of an inch for me, I'am a metric convert.

Now I wish the rest of the United states would finish, the conversion to Metric, they started back some thirty years ago.

 

[ajones]

Just got done building a carcass for a Sysport and use all metric dimensions for its construction. I could not believe how much easer it was to use metric over imperial measurements.  I never realized how frustrating and inaccurate Imperial measurements are. It was much easer and quicker to do all measurements in just millimeters. No fractions, on inches vs Feet etc. Just how many millimeters something is.

So for me it is good by to fractions, no more 3/16th or 7/8th or 3/4 of an inch for me, I'am a metric convert.

Now I wish the rest of the United states would finish, the conversion to Metric, they started back some thirty years ago.

We have only managed half the job in the Uk petrol in litres distance in feet or yards or miles dual tape measures pints of beer  im sur there are more examples but I cant think of them [scratch chin]

 

[Tom Ryan]

...

Now I wish the rest of the United states would finish, the conversion to Metric, they started back some thirty years ago.

When my mother was in grade school, about 90 years ago, she was taught the metric system because "The country's going to convert to metric soon."

To quote an old CCR song, "Someday never comes."

Tom in central PA

 

[image132]

Just got done building a carcass for a Sysport and use all metric dimensions for its construction. I could not believe how much easer it was to use metric over imperial measurements.  I never realized how frustrating and inaccurate Imperial measurements are. It was much easer and quicker to do all measurements in just millimeters. No fractions, on inches vs Feet etc. Just how many millimeters something is.

So for me it is good by to fractions, no more 3/16th or 7/8th or 3/4 of an inch for me, I'am a metric convert.

Now I wish the rest of the United states would finish, the conversion to Metric, they started back some thirty years ago.

Well done Greg!! I'm so glad you have seen the light, I can't say I've ever used Imperial but just from the way it's used I don't think I want to at least not for building things. Anyway how long did it take you to learn metric?

 

[harry_]

metrication would not be that hard to do really,.... expensive, but not hard. Seems to me that many/most Americans have a good general idea of the metric system. Mostly from osmosis. We generally don't give it a thought, because there is no incentive to care.

Most of the products we buy are labelled in both...... remove the imperial and it is done. Highway signage would be expensive, but since this country is looking for job programs, there you go. I am sure there is someone out there that can change mile markers to Km markers. It's not like it need to all get done at once. And when they get up to the North-east corridor they can renumber the exits to something that makes more sense then sequential!

 

[Deansocial]

metrication would not be that hard to do really,.... expensive, but not hard. Seems to me that many/most Americans have a good general idea of the metric system. Mostly from osmosis. We generally don't give it a thought, because there is no incentive to care.

Most of the products we buy are labelled in both...... remove the imperial and it is done. Highway signage would be expensive, but since this country is looking for job programs, there you go. I am sure there is someone out there that can change mile markers to Km markers. It's not like it need to all get done at once. And when they get up to the North-east corridor they can renumber the exits to something that makes more sense then sequential!

well we are still on the mph in uk

 

[harry_]

We are as well, but the Km/h is already on the speedometer. It's not like anything more needs to be done other than to stop continuing the old. Leave what is there, there. When it comes time to replace, make sure it is the new. So what if it takes 30 or 40 years. If they had done that back when I was taught metric in grade school, it would be all over and done with by now.

 

[GPowers]

like I said in another thread:

The medical profession converted to metric system years ago.

So it can be done.

 

[WarnerConstCo.]

The problem lies in the damn auto manufacturers, everything that is bolted to the engine is in metric, everything on the actual engine itself is metric. [mad]

I find trim jobs are easier  when I use MM.

 

[image132]

like I said in another thread:

The medical profession converted to metric system years ago.

So it can be done.

Hasn't the science community done it too? As far as I'm aware if you want to do science in an international arena it has to be in metric.

 

[ajones]

like I said in another thread:

The medical profession converted to metric system years ago.

So it can be done.

Hasn't the science community done it too? As far as I'm aware if you want to do science in an international arena it has to be in metric.

E=MC2

 

[Nigel]

  As an Englishman living in France I have been converted to metric whether I like it or not.Well I like it!Nowadays anyone speaks in feet and inches I don't want to know.As the OP says metric is so much more accurate and simpler.Not only that but it's logical.Where's the logic in 12 inches to foot?Or 1760[I think]yards to a mile?

 

[Aquila]

Here in Australia, I grew up with Imperial measurement. In 1968 we converted to Metric. Being 20 years of age at that time I accepted and thought I had embraced it. However, in general, while enthusiastically adopting metric currency (most important  [laughing]) with dollars and cents, I continued to think in imperial for other things.

That is until, like our OP, I started and finished building a project  (a 7.8m (26 ft) strip planked trailable yacht) completely in Metric. After that immersion in metric measurement for lengths, mass, volume, area and many more derived units, there is no way I could consider even thinking in imperial.

I am still ambidextrous in the use of both Imperial and Metric, but the base is always Metric now. I convert from Metric to Imperial only if I am forced to.

Having gone through the conversion process at a country level, I can confirm that it is not only possible but easily achievable. However it will take time. In my view that will be about half a generation. But the benefits, in ease of use, effectiveness of communication with the rest of the world, access to the best quality products, designed to world standards is all worth the exercise and the education - because it will take a lot (especially in the general community - even more in the redneck community  - and we have one here too).

I cant urge this forum enthusiastically enough to support any plan to convert the change to metric in USA. The benefits to the country are absolutely immense. And you guys have an advantage - you already work with metric, world class tools and some of you already think in metric too. Imagine the benefits to the community if the rest of your countrymen had similar advantages in their chosen fields.

Go for it!

 

[Brice Burrell]

   As an Englishman living in France I have been converted to metric whether I like it or not.Well I like it!Nowadays anyone speaks in feet and inches I don't want to know.As the OP says metric is so much more accurate and simpler.Not only that but it's logical.Where's the logic in 12 inches to foot?Or 1760[I think]yards to a mile?

As I jokingly mentioned in the tape measure thread the logic behind the 12 inches is it can be even divided by three and four where the standard of ten in the metric system can not.

 

[rookie08]

As a relative newcomer to the Festool system(compared to others on the forum  [big grin],  I started using the metric system a little while ago and I find it hugely more efficient than the imperial system.  Though I still have a bit of a challenge thinking in metric on the fly (I know an average door is 80 inches, but what is that in metric...) doing the specific measuring in metric is so much simpler. No more converting 8ths to 16ths to 64ths or back etc every time I'm trying to set up cuts etc. I use my laser measurer and all my tapes in the metric system.  Even my new incra trak was ordered in metric!  I realize if one has been using a specific measuring system professionally for some time, any transition or change can be challenging, but for me, what a huge upside!  [thumbs up]

 

[image132]

E=MC2

Energy = Mass X Speed of light2?

huh?

I cant urge this forum enthusiastically enough to support any plan to convert the change to metric in USA. The benefits to the country are absolutely immense. And you guys have an advantage - you already work with metric, world class tools and some of you already think in metric too. Imagine the benefits to the community if the rest of your countrymen had similar advantages in their chosen fields.

Go for it!

I'd support that. I'd also support Britain fully converting to it too. Can you imagine how much easier it would be for everyone if we all just used one system? From someone posting measurements on the web so that anyone can use and understand to tool manufacturers not having to worry about pumping out two separate types of tools.  Maybe one day.

 

[Deansocial]

i one of many in the uk that still goes to a merchants and asks " can i have 10no  4x2 3.6m long

 

[Rob-GB]

i one of many in the uk that still goes to a merchants and asks " can i have 10no  4x2 3.6m long

;D ;D ;D I think a lot of us do it as we have had to work for so long in a dual system, and sometimes the old git we are dealing with refuses still to use metric [dead horse]

My tapes and most of my steel rules are all metric, partly because it is what I want and most comfortable in using, partly because I like the look on someones face when they ask to borrow one and find the imperial scale missing [popcorn] (yeah I got a twisted evil kind of humour sometimes ;D)

The beauty of the Autocad drawing program I use is that I can print drawings(all done in metric) with both dimension styles when required, for a client who is still not conversant in metric. Though the fractions are really untidy on a design page [tongue]

Rob.  ;D

 

[decoy]

i one of many in the uk that still goes to a merchants and asks " can i have 10no  4x2 3.6m long

This is true for Norway too, and we've been metric since 1887

 

[tbellemare]

Typically, (at least in the situations I've been in), U.S. engineering is done in decimal equivalents of Imperial measurements (thousandths of an inch) or in Metric - the former always seemed pretty lame to me. It is classically explained away as having to do with the machine shop.

I spent several years conducting and then managing improvements in engineering/manufacturing process efficiency. I sold and managed the implementation of a lot of post processors for machine tools and that excuse (blaming the machine shop) is totally bogus.

Unless you are talking about really old machine tools, I can't think of a reason to perpetuate Imperial measurements other than, "that's the way we always did it".

That sentiment is what will keep this country mired in the inefficiencies of the past. The dramatic improvements in efficiencies that our country (and others) has (have) been able to achieve over the last couple of decades are because certain people wouldn't allow that thinking to prevail.

'Just my 2 cents, which used to be worth ~1/40th of a Euro??? Actually, a Guilder, and I think the Euro was based on the value of a Guilder.

Tom