I have measures (e.g. squares, rules, tapes) in both metric and imperial. Similarly, I have tools (e.g chisels) that have widths measured in either mm or inches (or fractions thereof).

First impressions are that metric should be the easier medium in which to work as calculations are just less complicated (no fractions to work with). Yet, on reflection, imperial measurements may offer an advantage to woodworkers since the units are larger and, thus, less finicky.

It is expensive to work in both mediums and we, living in Oz, are caught between two worlds, the influences of Europe and the USA. We are officially a metric nation, yet I suspect that most of us are of an age that grew up with the imperial system, so we are conversant with both.

Which system do you find more useful, and why?

Regards from Perth

Derek

Hi Derek,

I find that metric is easier to deal with because most material and equipment/machinery are in metric and you don't have to convert half of the measurements. I work on Americian built aircraft, so using imperial measurements isn't really a problem either.

Glen.

Derek,
This hoary chestnut just won't go away, will it?
Having grown up with Imperial (but had to learn Metric at school and use it in my profession) I've had a fair amount of experience with both. Being a pretty keen wodworker since the age of 12, most of my woodworking has been with Imperial.
I spent a long time out of Australia in the 70's and 80's during the time we made a pretty fair effort at converting. I was in Canada, where they were supposed to be converting, too, but because the Dinosaurs next door are sticking doggedly to Imperial, they were dragging their feet, and making very slow headway.
So when I came home I found everyone in timber yards etc, talking 'metric' and had to make a big effort to 'catch-up'. I started by buying some measuring implements that had both metric and imperial, and doing constant conversions - half-baked or complete, and ended up confusing myself and making some classic blunders. One day, after ruining a piece of perfectly good wood through a stupid conversion error, I took all of the 'mixed' and imperial rulers, tapes, etc. and buried them at the bottom of the garden. I then went out and bought straight metric replacements, and had no more problems other than the occasional cock-up of the 'measure once and cut twice' type.
But it took a very long time for me to really 'think' metric - by which I mean thinking of a table as being about 750 high instead of around 30", but gradually, nearly all of those figures ingrained by 40 years of habit have receded, so that only now and again do I automatically think of some familiar dimension in terms of feet or inches, but it still happens, occasionally.
The one measurement for which there is no easy equivalent is the super-foot, or board-foot as the North Americans say. This is a very useful measure of volume, and there are no metric 'equivalents' that cut it as well. There are just no intuitively useful dimensions in milimetres that make up a litre (try it!) - somebody orta invent one. I still find myself clumsily convering cubic metres to superfeet (and at 454 to the 1,000, that's not easy mental arithmetic!)
In summary, my opinion is that it doesn't matter a hoot what system we use, as long as we all use the same one. There are pros and cons of both systems, which will no doubt be aired passionately here, but metric has the undoubted advantage, in my opinion, of easier maths for the sorts of quick calculations we do in everyday practical applications.
And even with my new specs, a milimetre is the smallest practical unit I can cope with.
My 2c worth.......

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IW

Derek,

I grew up when the imperial system were the units of measurement. At Primary School we had to convert from lbs and cwt and quarts and chains etc to the metric equivalents.

So what do I use? Bits from both.
For woodwork - mm
long road distance - Km
height of people - feet
area - acres
land distances - chains (most roads are 2Ch wide)
volume - depends, a 44 gal drum or litres in some cases but of course a pot will always be 10oz!

Calculations are more easily done if you use metric but figures of speech I use imperial - a few inches etc.

- Wood Borer

Derek,

Like you, I was brought up with imperial measures, but I now find metric much easier to work with. The only trouble is that, owing to the obstinacy of our Yankee friends, router collets and router bits, as well as dado sets, are still largely imperial, so we are forced to retain vestiges of imperial measures. Maybe, when European tool manufacturers finally make it into the 21st Century, and develop websites, we will at last be able to buy metric versions of these items.

Rocker

Think metric, it's a dozen times easier!

Like many here, I was raised on imperial but weaned onto metric. I still think in superfeet, but do all my woodwork in metric. Last night I had to scale some American plans for SWMBO and found that what used to be second nature no longer is.

The worst conversion units I ever came across were at work, where we went from measuring water flow rates in cubic feet per second - easy to visualise, = velocity in ft/sec times X-section area in square feet - to megalitres a day = = velocity in km/day times X-section in square metres. Every other authority in Australia went to cubic metres per second, but not us. I'm surprised the powers that be didn't go to firkins a fortnight!

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Metric all the way,

3/39ths of a furlong doesnt really help me much.
Having said that, I know I'm 6'3 but I'd have no idea how tall I am in metric terms.

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Cheers,

Adam

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I can cure you of your Sinistrophobia

I vote Metric. Whenever woodworking or drawing plans or anything like that I use Metric.

Having grown up hearing imperial from both my perants, I can use both pretty well, and often have to convert figures to imperial so they know what I'm talking about "so the new bench will be 90cm tall...(blank stare)...about 3 feet"

Metric is soooooo much easier. 16ths, 32nds, 64ths, don't think they could have made it harder if they tried.

Ben

I was in 4th class when metric came in. We were only just learning about "mensuration" so it was an easy transition. Our school-supplied rulers were 30cm on one side and 12" on the other.

When I started work, I quickly discovered that the metric world was simply a thin veneer over the older imperial one. Most of the materials we used in manufacture were imperial sizes. People would give us measurements in feet and inches, or they would ask for something 3/4" by 1200 long. Sheet sizes were 8' x 4', not 2400 x 1200. Sometimes people got confused and asked for inches when they meant millimetres and got more than what they bargained for. We are still surrounded by old imperial sizes dressed up as metric.

I work almost exclusively in metric now when measuring, although I have some tools that are imperial. My Incra jig has imperial increments. I'm relatively comfortable with it but I tend to think in metric and translate to imperial when necessary. My dad measures in metric and my mum, who was in the clothing biz before getting married, still measures in imperial.

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"I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."

i was born in 45 so that like the majority of you I was raised to imperial. Damn but that was a really stupid system. There is no consistency across the board for any set of numbers.

8 pints to a gallon, 12 inches to a foot, 24 hours to a day, (we still got that one ). Ah well, we learned to struggle through the maths involved with these things. Later when we converted to Imperial we also learned how to do non-stop conversions of 25.4 mm to the inch, 600 mm to a pint, 24 hours to a day. Finally I started to think metric but I have recently found that I am having to relearn imperial measurements as most of the American stuff is still in this archaic form.

One thing that bugs me nowadays is that women in general seem to use centimetres to measure things and they get irrational when I scream at them to stop using centimetres and just use millimetres. Women eh?

PS a measurement that is very handy to know: 1/16" is equal to 1.6 mm is equal to 16 gauge steel. Armed with this, you can conquer the world.

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Bob Willson - One of these days I'll make something really good without any mistakes in it at all. - Yeah right.

Thanks, Bob! You learn something every day.

I was born in 1947 and my experience mirrors that of the other baby boomers. Spent years at school learning nasty complicated imperial measurements (including avoirdupois weights :confused: ). When metric systems were introduced, I was a sprog engineer so I rapidly had to re-learn it all in a new language. Now the only vestiges of imperial measure that occur to me are the ones everyone else knows: my height in feet and inches etc.

As for woodwork, pretty nearly everything is metric for me.

Col

1/16:" is actually equal to 1.5875, but I don't believe that we work to that fine a tolerance with wood. In imperial the difference is 0.0004921"

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Bob Willson - One of these days I'll make something really good without any mistakes in it at all. - Yeah right.

My left foot is exactly 12" from heel to toe with my toenails cut.

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"I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."

It's ony just occurred to me that I have never seen a penis dimensioned in metric.

Perhaps all those millimetres would be very intimidating?

P

Do they put dimensions on them now? A form of tattoo is it?

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"I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person I'm preaching to."