Any suggestions for HO gradient?

To my knowledge 3.5mm/ft still have followers in the UK.

I have the deepest respect for the Protofour/Scalefour people as well as for the other near-exact-scale people. They have managed to establish systems with enough followers to make commercial produktion of parts possible again boosting the number of followers. If you read from my home page you will know why.

That's an odd one. You may discuss if it's the gauge or the scale that is wrong, most often it is referred to as 4mm narrow gauge.

Here in Europe those are the same. 50×100 does not exist, in lumber. You get something like raw 2"x4" raw wood, planed then. The length ditto, originally it were feet, now it is diminished to multiples of 30 cm.

The way plumbers calculate is absolutely a secret to the trade. I gave up trying to understand. But, 1 cup = 1/4 l is comprehensable, especially since 1/4 l is a full beer glass..

Wim, you are only able to speak for your own area. France/Belgium/The Netherlands or whatever is not the hole of Europe.

Here in Denmark lumber dimensions in mm has been the norm for 25 years or so. When the change came there was a shift in dimensions for planed wood. What was earlier 1 inch (26mm) planed or 22mm, now is 25mm planed or 21mm. 50x100mm planed is now 44x95 mm.

Thanks for your link. I could not start the English version, so much of the text is unread by me, being not fluent in Danish.

Standard gauge, in metric 1435 mm, divided by 87 (H0) gives 16.494252874 which for all practical purposes is exactly 16.5 mm. So this is the correct gauge for standard gauge H0. FYI, I am modeling H0 to French prototype, now the Cevennes mining area, following NMRA standards, since 1975. NEM standards are converging to NMRA, but still are not the same.

Wim, which internet browser do you use? Normally clicking on Union Jack will bring you to the English index page but if it doesn't work in your browser, there may be a way to fix it.

The direct link to the English index page is

Erik Olsen skriver:

Virker ikke i Mozilla (det engelske link altså :-)

Klaus

H0 scale 16.5 mm gauge 1:87 scale is the only gauge/scale where NEM and NMRA standards are close.

N scale 1:160 scale may seem similar but is not, the differences between NEM and NMRA standards are to large so mixing is to invite problems. I wrote of this in

Scaleseven 33mm gauge 1:43.5 scale is to the correct gauge/scale ratio (1435/43.5=32.99mm) but is to my knowledge (like S2, S3 and S4) only used in the UK.

NMRA 0 gauge 1.25in (31.75mm) gauge 1:48 scale has a wrong gauge/scale ratio and is completely different from the European 0 scales.

Btw for calculating gauge and similar one should take the tolerances into account. Gauge is never exact.

On 2/24/2009 9:27 AM Erik Olsen spake thus:

So what do you call (i.e., ask for at the lumber yard) what we call a "two-by-four", a framing member that's actually 1-1/2" x 3-1/2" (nominally 2 inches by 4 inches)? I'm sure you must have an equivalent timber size for framing, etc.

Hm, I don't have Mozilla, but it doesn't work in Firefox either. Thanks for your reply, I will be checking into that.

On 2/23/2009 11:52 AM Twibil spake thus:

Whoa there, big fella; don't you think you're being maybe a *mite* harsh here? After all, we're discussing measurement systems, not extraordinary renditions for "enemy combatants" or some such.

Not that I don't agree with you w/respect to the typical Eurocrat attitude of "make 'em go metric, same as us". I think we ought to do exactly what we (U.S.) are doing, which is, basically, nothing.

However, in fairness, I must point out that the Yurpeens are light years ahead of us (U.S.) in such areas as health and safety protection (e.g., RoHS). Listened to a radio program this morning that points out that because of more stringent regulations over there, we (U.S.) are now becoming the "dumping grounds" for toxic products (like children's squeeze toys containing banned plasticizers), which is a reversal of the previous situation, where *we* dumped toxic s*it on the rest of the (unregulated) world.

I'm not keen on all lumber sizes for building purposes but I think what we call "lægte" used for tile roofs is appr. 45mmx95mm. My dictinary translates "lægte" to lath or batten.

Wood sizes exist in two dimensions in North American: rough cut, and dressed or finished. Typical lengths are 8', 10', 12', and 16'.

2x8 becomes 1-1/2x7-1/4

In a metric sphere, the measurements aren't much different and work in multiples of 25:

Same for railroad scales: G = 1:25, O = 1:50, HO = 1:100, N = 1:200. It keeps the math simpler.

Cheers, John

Good afternoon Wim;

It's purpose was to simplify the arithmetic as most would find 227mL a difficult number to work with. It's mostly used with kitchen measurements. The Americans are more precise at 237mL in the conversion of their larger ounce. Personally, I think it was done with 250 so government workers could keep up ;).

Cheers, John

No, you do not see an "English" flag. What you see is the "Union" flag.

The English flag is a red cross on a white background.

This is the English flag. : -

-- Cheers.

Roger T. See the GER at: -

Well, one secret is that in Denmark lumber sizes were in Danish inches until it went metric. A Danish inch is 26.2mm compared to the Imperial inch of 25.4mm.

Traditionally in Denmark until metrification in carpentry, building, road and railway construction (except for the track itself) the old Danish measurements "tommer" (inches), "fod" (feet) and "alen" (two feet) were used. In steel, machine and railway vehicle construction Imperial measurements were used. For railway track and track parts Imperial measurements were used.

That's why lumber metrification had a rather large impact here.

By the way it seems rather peculiar that many US and some UK citizens keep growling about the horrors of metrification when we for a long time experienced using three systems of mesurement in practical work. As a machine shop apprentice in 1971-1975, a turner for one more year and an amateur carpenter I have used them all.

I was an apprentice at F. L. Smidth & Co. in Valby, Copenhagen, and we made a lot of spare parts for older cement packing plants, many of them in Imperal units. At that time and for ten years more I was also a member af the work force at one of the Danish preserved railways, most work there was done in Imperial measurements.

The web pages have now been corrected such that the page title does not cover the flags (only in FF and Safari). I needed a bit of help from one of the web design groups as at first I couldn't figure it out.

Thanks again for your help, Wim and Klaus.

We haven't had that much utter nonsense for a very long time.

How long have you been away?

I finally get back my USENET and get met with this nonsense!

-- Bob May

rmay at nethere.com http: slash /nav.to slash bobmay http: slash /bobmay dot astronomy.net

Yes, right. But as a symbol to get to the English language it serves the world. There is no 'union' language yet, as far as I know. An english flag symbol would take us to st. Georges speak. So it is fine that Erik used the union flag symbol to point to English language.