Wikipedia says: "Note that for gauges 5 through about 14, the wire gauge is effectively the number of bare solid wires that, when placed side by side, span 1 > How do I interpret something's gauge thickness?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I Googled it and got this reference:
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^The Wikepedia rule may be correct for wires, but it does not agree with the charts for sheet metal. If fact the charts have a different column for galvanized, aluminum and sheet steel. I think you need to do some more checking.
I seem to recall that a number of years ago the auto manufacturers redesignated their gauge standards, so they could go to thinner metal without telling us.
My intitial question would have been where in the world are you but your 2nd post confirmed US. It's really best when quoting gauge to quote what gauge you are refering to on an international BB, awg, swg, etc as quoting ga is misleading as it depends what is normally used in your locality, mine would be swg and so I make a point of noting that designation when sited. Interestingly for me 16swg is 0.064", almost
1/16" and also 1.6mm but these days with metrication you rarely get
16swg in the UK, rather 1.5mm.
There are approximately one-half a bazzilion different gauge 'standards', although for the most part you can divide it down to wire, ferrous metal, and non-ferrous metal.
None are simple, although 16-gauge is close to, or exactly, 1/16th inch on many of them.
Just get a chart that lists the ones that are important to you, and don't sweat it.
All I want is to be able to tell about what the guy on the other end of the phone is talking about.
When I ask for 1/8-inch square tubing, and the supplier says all he has is
11-gauge, I'm tired of sitting on the other end of the phone like an idiot thinking, "What the f*** does that mean? Is it thicker or thinner, and by how much?"
First off, your question didn't specify that you were interested in TUBE gage, which is different that the other gauges!!! When I was in the business, you just ignore any statements about gauge and ask the vendor for a decimal conversion. Saves confusion, any vendor that takes exception should just go out of business.
In your case, 11ga is .120 wall. ... NOMINAL ... Of course the tubing business buys steel by the pound and sells it by the foot so they have every reason to skimp the wall thickness as long as it falls in the ASTM spec range. My cheat book on ASTM specs seems to have gone missing but IIRC, it allows about .004" (???) undersized on 2" square tubing to ASTM 513 type 1 or 2. Presume that your tube would come in closer to .115" than anything else.
A critical applicati> All I want is to be able to tell about what the guy on the other end of the
look at my previous post - and there is a large list for all. It came from my excel file that I maintain my inventory. I put type and size in it to the right of the gauge number.
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