Metrication advocates are at it again

The real problem with converting the US is all the foot-dragging. It is aggravating to try to work on an older car and half the bolts are metric and half SAE! I'd like to see a cold turkey swap. It wouldn't take very long and all this BS would be history.

It's my ambition when I retire to count to twenty useing my fingers and toes, and then continue the count to twenty one :-)

misc.metric-system

Metrication

Alan in beautiful Golden Bay, Western Oz, South 32.25.42, East 115.45.44 GMT+8 VK6 YAB ICQ 6581610 to reply, change oz to au in address

On 2 Jan 2004 18:12:34 -0800, jim rozen brought forth from the murky depths:

Izzat Aussie, Brit, Whitworth, American, or Chiwanese millimeters? And shouldn't it refer to something like a radius or diameter? Please don't taunt us like that, Jim. You're really just a troll from the "Pi r round" group, aren't you?

======================================================== Was that an African +

On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 09:13:14 GMT, Gunner brought forth from the murky depths:

Isn't that measured in Yums per pint? Organic, Metric, or Imperial trees?

======================================================== TANSTAAFL: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

On Sat, 03 Jan 2004 12:57:59 GMT, "Ron Thompson" brought forth from the murky depths:

"Cold turkey is the way to go." said the ex-drinker & ex-smoker.

That's the way our schools should be, too. Total immersion is the quickest way to learn a new system or language.

I wish we had done that way back when. Working on bilingual cars was hell.

I left California but can think of 28 different ways they can save millions there: drop the multilingual crap. Ballots and election materials are all printed in that many languages.

======================================================== TANSTAAFL: There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

It's either 42 or 44 or 47. (I worked it out 3 times).

Nope; 42.

Jim

So, you want the government to step in and mandate a particular measurement scheme? I think that's a bad idea. Let the market decide which unit conventions are appropriate.

Metric is already being used in most manufacturing plants. And the places where pints, hogsheads, furlongs, etc are still in use, there's probably a good reason for them.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

I have no problem using metric or inch units in our job shop, but I do object to DIN tolerances. Instead of specifying "G7/h6", I want to see something ON THE PRINT OR IN THE CAD FILE telling me the tolerance range desired. It takes a lot less time for the engineer to do that ONCE than to have to go look it up on a chart every time someone sees the print for the first time. Also, I seen a lot of metric prints that have a tolerance block that gives an increasingly large tolerance as dimension size goes up. Pre-CNC, this may have made sense but now I consider it nonsense. Use significant digits to identify general tolerances.

I'd really like to see the US architectural industry go metric. They seem to consider 1/4" to be precise, and too many times I've added up their length dimensions within a part and ended up with a total longer or shorter than the part. Or I convert their CAD dimensions to decimal and discover that what showed as 5/8" originally is actually .650" because they had made the fractions round off to the nearest 1/32". Then I have to call to ask them which number is right, and they take two days to get back to me, and wonder why their parts are late.

David

A city wide blackout at Sat, 03 Jan 2004 09:18:27 GMT did not prevent Gunner from posting to rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

The numeric answer is 42 (47 in Pomona). The non-numeric answer is "shopping".

This thread reminds me of a discussion I was involved in a while ago.

During WW2, when the British needed more Merlin engines, because they could not keep up with demand, The contracted with an American company to make them, so the entire set of plans was converted from metric to standard, and the American company proceeded to make the engine.

Well when the American made engines were finished and tested, they produced several hundred more horsepower than the British made engines, despite being basically the same engine, just made to standard measurements verses the metric measurements of the original engines.

The best reason that anyone came up with, as to why they performed better than the original British engines, was because the American made engines were held to tighter tolerances than the British made engines.

Greg H.

Interesting story, but I think at that time the british were not using metric fasteners or dimensions. I think they were english-based for dimensions, and probably whitworth for the fasteners.

The motors probably worked better because the electics were not made by lucas.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

The market has already decided. With the exception of a few holdouts in the US, everyone uses metric. The only remaining question is: "How long will these slowpokes hold the rest of us back?"

Looks like more than one here has the same tastes in literature

Gunner

"Gun Control, the theory that a 110lb grandmother should fist fight a 250lb 19yr old criminal"

Realistically, until most of the people who learned imperial units first, and still think they are better, die.

Dave

No, Douglas Adams got it wrong. It must have been a transcription error. The correct answer was "49".

And the question was "how long will I live?".

Dave

How are they holding us back?

Ed Huntress