Thread: What is 4 3/8 inch in real measurements?

it always amazed me that babies are still measured in pounds

Originally Posted by Pagie

it always amazed me that babies are still measured in pounds

Bragging rights. It gives a bigger number.

I know which one i’d rather use if I had to set out a measurement using a rule.

4 3/8” or 111.125mm - hmmm, let me think

Being of the age where I was brought up in imperial and had to switch to metric, I have no problems with either especially when precision measuring eg. Engine components.

I think its ironic that Australia ditched Pounds Shillings and Pence and adopted the US style Dollars and Cents in the 1960s (I had a 5 cent coin months before we converted).
Remember this: https://youtu.be/7oTDRjyti1s
Then we ditched the (US) Imperial measurement system and went Metric in the 1970s.

But I bet the Yanks think Pounds Shillings and Pence is ancient and inefficient.
You'd think they'd be right at home with Pounds Shillings and Pence. It fits pretty well with Imperial measurements.

Remembering doing arithmetic (pencil and paper) with Pounds Shillings and Pence still scares me. And guineas. Wow.

The close "old old school" length measurement to 4 3/8" is one of the many "hand spans" that were used to measure shortish lengths.

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_(unit)
The common or "great" hand span was #4 in the picture and was ~9"
The closest to 4 3/8" is #2 and on my hand that is ~112 mm

220px-Hand_Units_of_Measurement.PNG

If you want to see some weird length units - look up old Russian length units.
The base unit is the cubit or "arshin" (yard) but it's only equal to 2 1/3 Imperial ft.
Their "fut" (foot) was 3/7 of their arshin but is actually equal to an Imperial ft.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsole...of_measurement
The above suggests the 16th century Russians had short legs (hence a short step) and big feet.

Originally Posted by Blocklayer

I think its ironic that Australia ditched Pounds Shillings and Pence and adopted the US style Dollars and Cents in the 1960s (I had a 5 cent coin months before we converted).

Russia has decimal currency for nearly 100 years before the US.
The US and France introduced decimal currency at about the same time in the 1790's and Napoleon introduced decimal currency in all the European countries he conquered and most of them stayed with it when he was defeated.

Are we speaking of the English inch, or the French one?



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Originally Posted by Lappa

I know which one i’d rather use if I had to set out a measurement using a rule.

4 3/8” or 111.125mm - hmmm, let me think

Being of the age where I was brought up in imperial and had to switch to metric, I have no problems with either especially when precision measuring eg. Engine components.

I spent a couple of decades working in newspapers, where you measured across the page in picas and points and down the page in cm (though line spacing was still in points). Thanks to desktop computers, the pica and point now corresponds to inches - 1/6 and 1/72 respectively. I have had to hide rules and tape measures that were both metric and imperial when in the workshop because I'd fall back into using inches across and cm down, a problem when using System32 for cabinets!

I don't like converting measures because it can introduce rounding errors. A good example is the Rockler pro shelf drilling jig, which though marketed as 32mm spacing it's not because 1 and 1/4 inch is really 31.75mm. Drill a row of 20 holes and you're now out by 5mm.

I keep having a similar problem.
Pump plunger is 27 1/2" in diameter. I measured this with calipers. However as most visitors to the Pumping Station would not understand imperial, we need to convert to metric. Now in metric it is 698.5mm or 69.85cm. So should I tell visitors the pump plunger diameter is 700mm, or 698.5mm or even 699mm?
For older visitors, 65+ I just say 27 1/2"!

Originally Posted by Fuzzie

Actually the Americans can't even work in Imperial properly. How many times have I seen them use nomenclature such as 12.3 foot? What does that mean?

Actually it is worse. A survey crew party chief summed it up perfectly.
"The only people that use feet and inches are whores and carpenters."
In surveying in the US we use feet and tenths.

LOL!

I hope that the above doesn't get this thread moved to Open Slather.

Originally Posted by AlexS

Go metric, it's a dozen times easier!

I prefer the metric dozen 10 o/o 10

Originally Posted by DaveVman

If there's any archeologists out there who are experts in ancient measuring systems, are you able to tell me what is 4 3/8"?

It's this much

when you print it, scale the image so that the marked vertical dimension is exactly 100 mm

but why you just don't buy a simple ruler like this
Cabinetmaker's Rule - Lee Valley Tools
is beyond me


at the end of the day, every measurement is just two marks on a stick with a note saying what it represents.

To give an example of just how strong the anti-metric system feeling is in the US, remember what happened on 7 December 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service attempted to deliver a consignment of metric measuring instruments to the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbour.

Originally Posted by Fuzzie

Actually the Americans can't even work in Imperial properly. How many times have I seen them use nomenclature such as 12.3 foot? What does that mean?

It's 3 tenths of a foot (measured in Decimal feet). Nothing strange about it at all. Up till about 1973/74 decimal feet were the standard survey measurement system in Australia.