Hello Gentlemen, I followed this discussion until it turned, at times, kinda silly. Is doens't make sense arguing rationally against grown habits and prejudices. And why shouldn't craftsmen continue doing their job the way tjey learned it long ago? But: If we are going to be a round-the-world community and economy, we should unify our measures as good as possible. For instance: I have a very good book by Michael on building propane gas burners for furnaces etc. The objective is to make everything out of parts that can be bought at any hardware store - any US hardware store! Now, I started to translate all the dimensions into metrics, but the inside diameter of a 1/2 " pipe is, of course, about 5/8 " or so, the outside diameter would be a little greater - what's this in mm? What size is 1 "blackened #40 stainless steel pipe"? I took some pieces of old water pipe from my scrap box (water piping is measured in inches even today in Germany) and made myself a conversion table from 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch pipe dimensions. This is pretty tedious business, but I need a metric drawing before I can take parts to the lathe!
When we want to do international business, all nations wanting to participate ought to use a unified system of measurements, and as we see in a crisis like now, US Congress wasn't too early to pass legislation on the metric system as early as in 1977, if I recall right. One more technical aspect of the problem wasn't mentioned so far: giving a measure in meters, cm or mm etc. also tells something about the tolerances involved. For instance, 1.2 m means: more than 1.1 m, but not over 1.3 m, a tolerance good for making log wood for the chimney. 1247 mm means between 1246 and 1248 mm etc. How is that with 2 17/32 inch? This shows a difference in thinking between metric and imperial systems: metrics don't use fractions except fot 10 as a divisor, reciprocal values and don't need gauges. This is what makes it difficult for the inch-world, not the question of the base being 1 or 2.54. When I was studying (physics), with the guys I enjoyed making up a metric system completely built on the unit length and mass of a belony sandwich and the time unit of a skiing elevator ride. For angles we used the thumb method (17 thumbs on a right angle). We were able to express anything from atomic masses to the size and mass of the universe in belony units, including electric current flow and "voltage" (which would be renamed in "belonage") although the numbers were a little queer. Many greetings from a sunny afternoon Peter Blodow At 17:58 11.06.2009, you wrote: >I stopped 'translating' values early on once I moved to the states. >It's just confusing. it's easier to get used to the 'new' system. >But metric is definitely forcing it's way into the door. There are >numerous catalgues I recevied recently which have only metric torque >values and no US imperial system except for dimensions. Probably to >lower the shock lol. I had to repair a larger machine recently and >ordered parts. A new shaft came from China and it was metric in >diameter (where it id not matter) and withUS imperial threads on the >end. A bastard shaft lol. > >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial >Check out the new simplified licensing option that enables unlimited >royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing >server and web deployment. >http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects >_______________________________________________ >Emc-users mailing list >[email protected] >https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensing option that enables unlimited royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
