Understanding Gauges

How do I interpret something's gauge thickness?

I want to know what my supplier is talking about on the phone whenever he blurts out a gauge thickness to me.

Is 16-gauge the same as 1/16-inch thick? Is 12-gauge the same as 1/12-inch thick?

Is this all there is to it, the denominator of a fractional thickness where the numerator is unitary?

Thanks for the clarification. ~JP

Reply to
jp2express
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I kept researching, and answered my own question.

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?

Reply to
jp2express

Here are a couple of sites with info.

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Mike

Reply to
amdx

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 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.

Reply to
Leo Lichtman

Reply to
RoyJ

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.

See

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Reply to
David Billington

Plate Thickness Material Thickness

5/8 0.625 9/16 0.563 1/2 0.500 7/16 0.438 3/8 0.375 5/16 0.313 1/4 0.250 3/16 0.188 1/8 0.125 1/16 0.063 Metal Gauge 3 0.2391 4 0.2242 5 0.2092 6 0.1943 7 0.1793 8 0.1644 9 0.1495 10 0.1345 11 0.1196 12 0.1046 13 0.0897 14 0.0747 15 0.0673 16 0.0598 17 0.0538 18 0.0400 19 0.0418 20 0.0359 21 0.0320 22 0.0299 23 0.0269 24 0.0216 25 0.0209 26 0.0179 27 0.0164 28 0.0149 29 0.0135 30 0.0120 31 0.0105 32 0.0097 33 0.0090 34 0.0082 35 0.0075 36 0.0067

Mart> I kept researching, and answered my own question.

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

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.

Reply to
Tim Wescott

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?"

I d>

Reply to
jp2express

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

Reply to
RoyJ

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.

Mart> jp2express wrote:

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

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