Metric vs Imperial units

[Just_a_fan]

For Just a fan: there is such thing as a metric adjustable spanner (aka adjustable wrench: we don't communicate in english, we comunicate, if we do so, in international english, which means we talk as we can).

"international english"? [-X My dear chap, there is only one English Language and that is The Queen's English (which will become The King's English of course when The Queen dies and is replaced by her slightly left-field eldest son).

I do wish all of our former colonies, allies and enemies (delete as appropriate ) would remember that.

"International English"! Whatever next - votes for women?



Oh, and just because an adjustable spanner is marked e.g. 10-22mm, doesn't mean it can only be used on metric fasteners. The spanner doesn't care what arbitrary measurements are used to define the items it is used on...

Metric and imperial adjustable spanners...pah!

Sorry, couldn't resist; I'm trying to finish my Master's dissertation (to be handed in in less than 2 weeks!) and just needed to let off a bit of steam...

[Pup]

mountain of stupid posts

+1

Yes, Ciro is so clever. As are you with your +1 there.

[Pup]

My US-friends calls it Stupid International and tells me that the people behind ISO 9000 must have had that many beers.

Fingers.

[Pup]

Oh, and just because an adjustable spanner is marked e.g. 10-22mm, doesn't mean it can only be used on metric fasteners. The spanner doesn't care what arbitrary measurements are used to define the items it is used on...

Well now I feel foolish for having bought both. Damned spanner salesman.

[Pup]

b]any possibility of staying on thread, instead of writing this mountain of stupid posts?[/b] You, mates, are missed elsewhere.

Summer break. The FIA doesn't allow any F1 related conversation. Thank you, btw, for your kind words for the no. 12. 10 gets all the press these days.

[Ciro Pabón]

JAF, you didn't check what a milli-grip is, didn't you? It is an adjustable spanner that has "fixed" positions for nuts and bolts' standard sizes. A useful gadget, I have one.

I can understand your point of view about Queen's English: I also saw My Fair Lady.

However, I live in Latin America. Just imagine: we're like 30 countries, speaking the same language (or almost the same language: I can listen people speaking in Portuguese and I can answer back in Spanish and, thus, communicate with Brazilians without problems). I can swear using words from many countries: it's a liberating business.

Of course, a spanning wrench, in Spanish, is an "English Wrench" (not a British wrench!). I hope this makes JAF happy.

Pup, how can I make you happy? I still have the mod attitude. It will take time to forget that. Consider I have been away for a looong time: I must have some kind of right to post once in a while and behave as I always have done.

However, stupid posts they are: you're drifting into infinity, as when we wrote elsewhere and you were a fuzzy hair, cute little thing. That's funny when you're a kid, but when you grow up, drifting is not so charming.

Please, I'm not trying to offend anyone: it's me the one offended by this kind of half-witted posts. I like to write about the theory of measurements, I'm into road inventory, excuse my impertinence, but you, mates, are smarter than that.

I think F1Tech has always be a nerd house, very precise in its love for its members. Strange nerds we have here: they drive cars at high speeds, so they don't seem to be nerds... but they are.

In the end, please, could you try to teach us something? Some of us find humour elsewhere.

[xpensive]

Welcome back from the cryogenic society, Ciro, quick visit though, did they run out of nitrogen perhaps?

On the subject of learning;
The piping world is still strangely imperial, but in the most awkward way;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominal_Pipe_Size

But if you want to make a quick buck within Norwegian offshore, you better accept this and roll with the punches.

Btw Ciro, did you meet Elvis or Michael Jackson?

[mep]

Ok lets teach those English speaking people that their so loved language is nothing else than a Germanic language mixed with some French words and a simple grammar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

The English language belongs to the Anglo-Frisian sub-group of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic family,...

Sorry for of topic.

[Pup]

In the end, please, could you try to teach us something? Some of us find humour elsewhere.

It's all in the timing, Ciro. Perhaps you're just not reading it right. Try it again in iambic hexameter and see if it doesn't make you chuckle, just a bit.

[Just_a_fan]

Ok lets teach those English speaking people that their so loved language is nothing else than a Germanic language mixed with some French words and a simple grammar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language

The English language belongs to the Anglo-Frisian sub-group of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic family,...

Sorry for of topic.

Some of us are aware of the language's history. That's why we're aware that your simplfication (by careful partial quoting from Wiki) is just that; a simplification.

The English language is like a sponge that has absorbed aspects of every language it has encountered in its travels through history. I think that's one reason why people around the world can and have taken it on in some way or other; it's got something familiar in it for just about everyone.

The reality, as Ciro pointed out by his use of the term 'International English' is that the English language stopped being English years ago. That's why my earlier posts were full of smileys - trying to show humour. Humour - now that's one thing we didn't inherit from our early Germanic roots...

[mr moda]

Practically no craftsman in the metric world uses mm. Builders, gardeners, tailors, carpenters and the like use centimeters and meters. Paper based maps use kms and GPS systems use both kms and meters. Architects and real estate agents use square meters and for very big real estate square km. Millimeters are only used by engineers and precision crafts like watch makers. Physicists and micro engineering use micrometers and nanometers. The liter which is the prevalent volume unit is equal to one cubic decimeter and we use hectoliters for bigger fluid containers like barrels. Drinks are measured in milliliters which are equal to a cubic centimeter. Civil engineers calculate earth movements in cubic meters and logistic experts use the same unit for shipping purposes. The myth that any imperial measurement for length, area or volumetric measuring is superior cannot be verified. It is simply not true. The metric system serves all purposes in all walks of life much better and more efficient.

Not true. All the cad work I do is in millimetres. This is the standard unit in Australia.

[WhiteBlue]

Well it is no big surprise as Australia isn't metric for very long and CAD isn't the traditional tool of craftsmen. Apparently in countries with imperial units crafts people still use tape measures and folding rules based on inches.





So the assumption is that those countries use mm for CAD based and precision work and continue to use inches for crafts work. By simple googling one can also find that some models show inches and cm in parallel.



This is a very clear indication that cafts globally use more coarse units than mm. They either use inches or cm. I bet that pretty much all wood which you buy for building a house in America comes in imperial measures. On the other hand there may be a rising amount of appliances which are supplied from Asia and Europe which are made to metric measure. If you buy plastic windows from China I would actually expect some of them to be based on metric tooling.

[mr moda]

So crafting and precision are 2 seperate things are they?

[WhiteBlue]

Crafts usually work to manual accuracies. When you start using machines that is where precision really starts, particularly when you work with numerically controlled machine tools as mass manufacturing does nowadays. Try to make a rectangular cut of 50 cm length with a hand held saw, even a powered one. You are not very likely to meet a mm accuracy. Same goes for stuff that gets made in a village forge or smithy.

There are always exceptions like watch makers, silver smiths, jewelers or makers of dental protheses but they are not the typical exponents.

[Pup]

I'm having trouble finding the point here. Is it that 312mm is more precise than 31.2cm? That's something I did not know.

I'm loving the folding ruler nostalgia, btw. My dad had one of those, with a bronze slider marked in 1/32's, which are more precise than millimeters, last I checked.

MM is an SI standard, Gugs. It's not just "those countries".

Precision cabinetry these days are cut by computer. In the field you get what you get - you pay more, you get more. But you do the drawings in MM, and that way everyone is on the same page.