Measurement system - Metric/Imperial?

[Art]

On 10/15/2016 at 5:16 PM, LumpenDoodle2 said:

Is that 'fell off back of' Lorry Full :-)

No darling,

That would be fell off a truck, which means -- stolen while the truck was unattended.

Art

[Art]

On 10/15/2016 at 4:19 PM, gary said:

Similar thing happened to me a couple of years ago.  Went to buy 2 x 4s - had to ask for 50x100s (even though they are really 51 x 102) 'cos that's how they size them now.  When they were delivered they were undersized.  Queried that and I was told "...they are CLS".  ?   "Canadian Lumber Standard".  He couldn't explain it but it appears to mean that maximum size is 2x4 and they can be a fair bit smaller.

And you can't get a cord of wood now.  Seems the standard sizes are 'Small Trailer', 'Big Trailer' and 'Back of the Lorry Full'.

 

People don't want to sell you wood by the cord over here (well at least in Maryland) because it must be stacked at delivery, measure 4' x 4' x 8', and be stacked tight enough that a chipmunk cannot get through it (it's the law).  All they want to do is dump it, sometimes where you want it, and charge you for a "truckload".

Art

[Art]

Don't read this, it is just a midnight xenophobic rant:

 

I guess the old farts like me are hoping that SAE and Imperial measure and sizes will be "What Makes America Great Again".  While I have my wish list out, There should be a law that anything exported from or imported into the U.S. should not have any metric measures, fasteners, or doodads in it, and that all packaging can only have English on the boxes and directions. Malt Whiskey from the Spey or the Island (or any of it for that matter) may have whatever the hell they want to put on it, spelled whatever way they desire, with the requirement that I can tell what it is and that they keep making it.  While I'm at it, if you want to immigrate, legal, illegal, refugee, or otherwise, you will be speaking fluent English in a year or you are on the next boat outta here.   Maybe enough for now.

Now folks, that is what I call Hope and Change!

Art

[Thor]

On 28.9.2016 at 2:56 PM, Dwight said:

...

Same went for screws, . . . the phillips head on a Japanese screw did not mesh with a German screwdriver, . . .  and it was so disconcerting, . . . a lot of us just balked and said forget it.  

Even now, . . . mechanics still have to have two sets of wrenches, . . . 

...

There's a lot of WAS in your post Dwight. I remember grass WAS greener then...

FYI phillips isn't pozidrive. That's like using a phillips on a robertson or pozidrive on a torx. However a phillips can be used on a pozidrive screw well, but not the other way round.

On 16.10.2016 at 0:49 AM, Mattsbagger said:

Just started with leather but I have come to embrace the metric system for measuring. It's much more precise for me. Still not sure what a hectare is in relation to an acre though.lol

10 acre = 4 hectares

BTW even if a country goes metric most structural components are still measured in imperial. For instance all plumbing is measured in inches or the equivalent term of that country. Zoll for Germany. A 5/16 shank equals 8 mm and so on. http://www.hamuniverse.com/antfrac.html

For clarification the leather industry standard worldwide is that areas are measured in square feet. European countries have to convert this into square meter by law. Thickness is measured by mm. Only the US and Canada still trade by ounces. 

That being said, I adapted to inches for leather work as well, cause really nothing in leather crafts has to be so precise that I can't squeeze it a mm or two. Inches is just good enough of a measurement. Not precise, but ok.

Art, you're getting old

 

[HobbledCobbler]

On 9/28/2016 at 3:03 PM, EfrainBG said:

I draw my patterns using inches. It's easier for me to measure, mark and do math in my head with fractions, even though I grew up using the metric system. Also, as someone mentioned above, much of the hardware used is described using imperial units. It makes more sense to me to stick to one system to work out aspect ratios or scale up or down when drawing than to convert back and forth between systems.
 

LOL! Converting back and forth can get you into trouble!

There was an online tutorial from the UK for developing a custom bra pattern. I had to buy a flexible ruler in Metric to draft the pattern because that's what the entire tutorial was done in.

I very carefully measured myself with my Imperial tape measure. Converted those measurements to metric and went on to follow the instructions for drafting the entire pattern in metric.

I finished the first time and thought, "I must have made a huge mistake" and started from the very beginning all over again.

I redrafted the entire thing and ended up with a pattern that was literally big enough for a milk cow!

Will never make that mistake again!

I never did get a pattern for that to work. I finally had to buy one.

[LumpenDoodle2]

.   The dangers of converting measurements, I know them well.   Well done for tackling a bra pattern, makes building the Forth Rail Bridge look like child's play.

[Nuttish]

Get yourself a Harbor Freight fractional/mm or better electronic calipers and both metric and imperial steel rules, and never think about it again. I say two rules because I at least personally find it confusing not to be able to flip and rotate a ruler to get the scale I want without having to also look at a completely different measuring system.

If you get really obsessive about accurately converting between metric and imperial, which is overkill, get yourself a machinist's rule with inches in 10ths and 100ths.

[EfrainBG]

On 25/10/2016 at 3:42 PM, HobbledCobbler said:

LOL! Converting back and forth can get you into trouble!

There was an online tutorial from the UK for developing a custom bra pattern. I had to buy a flexible ruler in Metric to draft the pattern because that's what the entire tutorial was done in.

I very carefully measured myself with my Imperial tape measure. Converted those measurements to metric and went on to follow the instructions for drafting the entire pattern in metric.

I finished the first time and thought, "I must have made a huge mistake" and started from the very beginning all over again.

I redrafted the entire thing and ended up with a pattern that was literally big enough for a milk cow!

Will never make that mistake again!

I never did get a pattern for that to work. I finally had to buy one.

I wish someone had caught me on tape... I literally spit my coffee on the cow part...

Now, back on subject. I'm designing right now a laptop bag/briefcase for the Mrs. Since I always ended up mith either stitches that were too long or too short, I decide I would start marking the stitches in the middle of the bag and work my way out... on the pattern!! That way I would see which stitch was the closest one to the projected size and "round up"... I'm having a breeze assembling this thing together!!!

[HobbledCobbler]

2 hours ago, EfrainBG said:

I wish someone had caught me on tape... I literally spit my coffee on the cow part...

Now, back on subject. I'm designing right now a laptop bag/briefcase for the Mrs. Since I always ended up mith either stitches that were too long or too short, I decide I would start marking the stitches in the middle of the bag and work my way out... on the pattern!! That way I would see which stitch was the closest one to the projected size and "round up"... I'm having a breeze assembling this thing together!!!

I'm sorry! What a waste of good coffee!

Didn't ruin it I hope!

I think that's a good idea with starting in the middle.

I tried hand stitching a pair of mocs. Wow, did it turn out wrong! After the 3rd time I decided to put it aside for later and haven't picked it back up. That's part of the reason I decided to get a leather patcher. Hand sewing is hard enough without messing it up so many times, taking all of the stitching out and doing it again and again and again!

[Art]

On 10/25/2016 at 4:56 PM, LumpenDoodle2 said:

.   The dangers of converting measurements, I know them well.   Well done for tackling a bra pattern, makes building the Forth Rail Bridge look like child's play.

Ah yes, but they built the Forth Rail Bridge using Imperial measurements.  Then again, they also built the Tay bridge (prior Forth Rail Bridge) using Imperial Measurements too, and we know how THAT turned out.

Art