Thread: Bunnings discontinuing imperial nuts and bolts

Originally Posted by 419

.... EDIT: Not to mention the sense of triumph after sifting with increasing despair through hundreds of pieces and then finding one that fits!
...

And when you're trying to explain the triumph, she says, "That's nice dear. Don't forget it's bin night"

Originally Posted by EagerBeaver71

Just returned from the UK. After the experience I've had of DIY stores and builders merchants over there I will never again moan about Bunnings, for a few months at least anyway...

Didn't they, collectively, drive Bunnings out of their market with its tail between its legs?

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Didn't they, collectively, drive Bunnings out of their market with its tail between its legs?

It's more that, just like the Woolworths / Lowes massive failure with Masters, Bunnings went into a market it didn't understand as well as the existing retailers and duly failed with a model and product range that wasn't what the market wanted.

In both the Masters in Australia and Bunnings in UK cases, the existing retailers didn't have to do anything to drive the intruder out. The intruders did it all by their own incompetence and arrogance. It was less a successful defence by the existing retailers and more an unintended kamikaze raid by the intruders.

But Masters worked out alright in the end. I got some massive bargains when they were going out of business, including an extra 20% off some already about third price kitchen pantry doors and a similarly reduced Graco paint sprayer for showing a trade card. Which happened to be a Bunnings Power Pass. The Masters' worker said any trade card would do, which reflects the stupidity of the liquidator leaving vengeful staff who've lost their jobs to deal with selling off their employer's stock.

As for vengeance, Wattyl paints went with Masters. They haven't been seen in Bunnings since.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Our American friends would initially be apoplectic, but they will get over it.

I don't think so.

I've been on international forums on woodwork and other unrelated areas such as boats and cars when some unsuspecting fool has innocently raised the question of why the USA insists on retaining its unique imperial (which is a misnomer as they are not Imperial in the British sense) systems when the rest of the world is mostly metric. This usually results in what might politely be called rabid mad dog responses about the brilliance of the American system and the magnificence of American everything and contempt for everything that's not American and how they built the transcontinental railways and the Empire State Building and won WWII and built the A bombs and got men on the moon without needing metrics.

Apoplectic doesn't begin to describe it.

All this is somewhat perplexing when one recognises that the American colonies converted to decimal currency during the Revolutionary War 1775 onwards, so since then they have had in effect a metric currency with none of the advantages that come from meshing it with metric measurements.

Originally Posted by r3nov8or

And when you're trying to explain the triumph, she says, "That's nice dear. Don't forget it's bin night"

No risk of that. Her Indoors has no interest in what I do in my shed. As long as the bins are out.

Originally Posted by jack620

Why would you want to do that? Zinc and SS are incompatible metals.

.... because you can.

US measurements vs metric???

Why does logic always come into the discussion.

What I want to know is why back in the late 1980's someone stole a 200lt drum full of tower bolts from a Telstra site in the middle of the bush SW of Charters Towers????

There is not that much demand or applications for bolt sizes like 22 mm x 65mm and above dias.
Well not unless you have a heap of Telstra tower steel work to use as fence posts & strainers.

Originally Posted by 419

I don't think so.

I've been on international forums on woodwork and other unrelated areas such as boats and cars when some unsuspecting fool has innocently raised the question of why the USA insists on retaining its unique imperial (which is a misnomer as they are not Imperial in the British sense) systems when the rest of the world is mostly metric. This usually results in what might politely be called rabid mad dog responses about the brilliance of the American system and the magnificence of American everything and contempt for everything that's not American and how they built the transcontinental railways and the Empire State Building and won WWII and built the A bombs and got men on the moon without needing metrics.

Apoplectic doesn't begin to describe it.

All this is somewhat perplexing when one recognises that the American colonies converted to decimal currency during the Revolutionary War 1775 onwards, so since then they have had in effect a metric currency with none of the advantages that come from meshing it with metric measurements.

This video was posted in the past two weeks:

Originally Posted by 419

... Apoplectic doesn't begin to describe it. ...

Agreed, but I cannot think of a better word.

Three countries still officially use imperial measures exclusively:

• USA,
• Libya, and
• Myanmar.

But it is really ironic that China, a staunchly metric country, is the only volume producer of imperial nuts, bolts and screws. If they stopped exporting them - quite an easy task in a command economy - the US would have an immediate sourcing problem. Would they ramp up local production of imperial stuff, or would they convert to metric. And the ramping up must be done yesterday.

Then, when the dust has settled, how would the average customer at Lowes, Home Depot, Harbor Freight, etc react when confronted with a choice:

• 5 cent metric screw made in China, or
• 50 cent imperial screw made in USA.

I suspect that metric would become more appealing?

President Xi really holds some subversive power!

Originally Posted by EagerBeaver71

This video was posted in the past two weeks:

Interesting that NASA was metric. I didn't know that. Neither do countless Americans who claim that they got men on the moon using imperial.

I know a guy who does parts for old Holdens, including a lot of fasteners. I doubt he would be too impressed with the demise of imperial fasteners. For new applications there's no problem using metric fasteners, BUT.

Originally Posted by 419

Interesting that NASA was metric. I didn't know that. Neither do countless Americans who claim that they got men on the moon using imperial.

According to the NASA website, they moved to metric around 1990. So Americans claiming they put a man on the moon using imperial are correct. Apparently the Apollo flight guidance computers did their calculations in metric, but displayed their results in imperial.

Originally Posted by jack620

Why would you want to do that? Zinc and SS are incompatible metals.

We never found it to be a problem, even though the products were outside for decades. Stainless was mainly used for dome nuts on galvanised bolts.

Originally Posted by jack620

Apparently the Apollo flight guidance computers did their calculations in metric, but displayed their results in imperial.

Brilliant!

Introduce another essentially unnecessary step and calculation for another opportunity for error.

Even at the simple manual level, a metric / imperial confusion led to at least one instance of a plane running out of fuel half way through its flight in 1983 in Canada.

"The [airline] said that fuel had been measured manually with special ''drip sticks'' because the electronic gauging system aboard the plane, Air Canada's first metric aircraft, was not working properly. But in converting the fuel volume determined from the stick readings into total fuel weight, the wrong conversion factors were used. The net result was that the pilots apparently thought the figure for fuel weight on board was in kilograms when it was really pounds. Since one kilogram equals 2.2 pounds, the plane took off with about half the fuel that it should have had." JET'''S FUEL RAN OUT AFTER METRIC CONVERSION ERRORS - The New York Times

Whatever happened to KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid?

Originally Posted by jack620

According to the NASA website, they moved to metric around 1990. So Americans claiming they put a man on the moon using imperial are correct. Apparently the Apollo flight guidance computers did their calculations in metric, but displayed their results in imperial.

If the displays were imperial but flight guidance calculations were metric, then metric got men to the moon.