You are part of the problem. You are old iron*). Good old iron. Like the lathes, calipers. All imperial. And when it has to be replaced, it also has to be imperial, because all the rest is imperial. It wouldn't fit.
**** As long as you think this way, things will stay the same. ****
Everything that has to be replaced has to be metric, that's a good way to start. Throw away all your metricational instruments that are imperial. Or sell them to stubborns.
If you store away material, it doesn't have a diameter of 1", but 25.4mm.
If you buy consumables like bolts and nuts or drills: Metric! Drills no longer with those odd numbers and letters, but in mm. 0.1mm increments are close enough, even if they are in fact imperial (it's just a different unit). You just have to burn those plastic stands for the drills and buy metric ones.
Let your students make new leadscrews and feedscrews for the mills and lathes as an exercise. Metric, if you are in doubt.
Within a year, you will see how well you metrified.
Naw ! It's got nothing to do with "dumbing down" unless you consider that metric is used in most of the rest of the world. That does not necessarily make it any better or its practicioners any dumber. The length of the king's foot and his outstretched arm are easier concepts to grasp than the measure of one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole. Leave it to the French to tamper with a workable system. They came up with a "more scientific" idea during Napoloeonic times. The common man of the time had no reason or necessary instrumentation to abandon the king's foot. As with most French ideas, "metric" had to wait until History could lend it the paraphernalia to pull it off.
This is high school, right? It would be a disservice to your students to teach strictly the standard measurements.(or to teach strictly the metric version) Remember some of those students will turn into people who travel the world, physically or virtually, during their career. Help them out a little by giving them a start to being 'bilingual' in measurement units. It's not beyond most people to understand that some products are sized because of historical reasons, and giving them the 'new' language will help them deal with the future.
Meanwhile, it's not hard to find bilingual tape measures and rulers, digital calipers, etc. You could start by introducing these tools into the tool crib as the others are broken or go missing.
This shows what your problem is. Nationalism! French are bad, so their way of measuring has to be really stupid. You clearly see that the fraction of the equator's length has to be completely nuts, the width of a thump of a single person or the length of is fatened feet, that must be a good standart. Even if the person (damned, he must have been egocentric) is dead since generations. He was to much ashamed to use his d*ck's length as a standup err ... standard. I also don't like the French very much, but what has it to do with the definition of the meter? Absolutely nothing. What has it to do with a decimal system? Absolutely nothing. Oh! That were the Arabs who introduced the zero and the decimal system. Now I know why that must be ... it must have something to do with **terrorism**. French terrorism, substitute for child suicide bombers! The meter is evil, it's *got* to be evil. Just look at the roots! Oh my good ... er Insha'Allah! Next, you'll find a connection of meter and Nazi, Ku Klux Klan certainly has to do with it too (or not, depending on your POV). All controlled by freemasons and aliens. Area 52 is a clear proof of all of that.
So we went from a measurement system based on a persons size of his appendages (homocentric) to a system based on a dimension of earth (geocentric). The standard meter, as defined today, is as a fraction of a sub-atomic particle transition. The arbitrariness of the whole affair has only been transferred to a larger cosmological set. If the human race wants to continue into space, maybe we should at least look for a measurement system based on Solar dimensions or immutable subatomic particle standards.
Nick Mueller wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@yadro.de:
Actually the length of an "inch" is tied to the metric system. There is a standard "meter" which is also just another random length chosen by someone. Actually it was supposed to be 1/10,000,000 of the distace from the pole to the equator, but somebody miscalculated. Later the meter became defined by a length of a platinum irridium bar kept stashed away in Paris. The problem with that length "standard" is that it can vary and also the bar could wear down. Since the meter is the basis of all mechanical measurement it can't be measured by mechanical means, at least not accurately, so the standard meter today after several other standards were adopted and discarded is defined as the distance traveled by light in vacuum during 1/299,792,458 of a second.
The standard length of an inch is defined as 25.4 millimeters. So the calibration of every "inch" mesuring instrument from gage blocks to micrometers is tied to the meter.
That being said, the metric system has it faults. The threaded fastener system is horrible. The scale is not "human". and fractional portions are part of every day life. Rarely does everything get divided by tens. In the case of machining parts, neither system is more "accurate" than the other.
The reason the US remains for the most part on the "inch" or "imperial" system is that we don't really have to change, so we don't. Despite all of the moaning about losing our industrial base, our industrial output is the largest in the world. The last time I checked we were still the largest free market in the world. We were also the world's largest exporter of goods and services. So if other countries want the US consumer to be their customers, then they need to deal with our quirks. If our position were reversed and we were an up and coming industrial nation then there would be more incentive to change.
It comes down to the cost and inconvenience of change. Would we export more goods if we were "metric"? Maybe. But would that new income pay for the cost to convert? Doubtful.
As Anthony's comments show it's really no big deal for a US manufacturer to work in metric. His company has to in order to comete on a global basis, so they do. If there were no reason to use millimeters instead of inches, his company likely wouldn't.
I'd disagree on finding bilingual tools. I'm not happy with digital calipers because they give an appearance of more accuracy than is really there. Students just read off the number, do not apply any "sanity check" to the reading.
That stuff is all no problem here in Canada, Roy. I'll try and get some info to you. Lotsa tape measures here with metric along 1 edge, imperial along the other, verniers with both scales too, so they do exist.
We are the best country in the world. We shall do things the way we want to and that's in inches and pounds. The rest of the world can do whatever they want.
Seems to me the US is being metricated by stealth from the rest of the world (China?). Last time I lived in the US about 1982 I can't recall seeing metric fasteners in the local hardware stores but now it's mentioned regularly on this NG that you can buy them at HD, Lowes, Walmart etc. There must be a need or they wouldn't sell them, I guess that's down to the US buying or making things that are using metric fasteners and they need replacement, hence the availability nowadays.
Sure, they sell metric hardware. Its in individual hweat sealed bags at 20 times what its worth. They might even have a dozen of a size, in that small parts cabinet, but the real hardware fills an entire isle.
Interesting all the JIS threads i've run across were for automotive use and based on UNF threads IIRC, DIN were metric although some were metricated inch thread systems for special applications such as pipe and tyre valves, SAE that would be US so what did they choose to base your standard on.
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