Thread: How do you measure up?

Another thread hijack!!!!

The original question is how you measure & mark, not which system you use.

But because I love to needle you a bit, Silent, I'll weigh in slightly on Graeme's side. There is no doubt metric is GENERALLY simpler than imperial and particularly when it comes to adding small increments adding small whole numbers is much easier for my poor neurons than adding mixed fractions.

Dunno about the sort of woodworking you do, but I frequently find myself doing just that. F'rinstance, when setting up to do sliding dovetails, & I have to work out the position of the fence to the left or right of the centreline. There are many other situations where small increments need to be added or subtracted.

However, I wouldn't be using 64ths - 32nds are my practical limit these days...Cheers,

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

............
(Unless and until I overuse The Stick and start confusing marks... )

Yep, done that a few times!!

Dunno about the sort of woodworking you do, but I frequently find myself doing just that. F'rinstance, when setting up to do sliding dovetails, & I have to work out the position of the fence to the left or right of the centreline. There are many other situations where small increments need to be added or subtracted.

I use metric for the situations like that in which I actually measure. Most of the time I sneak up on it by tapping the fence a bit one way or the other till it's right.

This is the same problem I had last time we had this debate. I really don't think people are getting the vibe of what I'm on about. In terms of design and general component set up, Imperial is streets ahead of metric. As a set of standard increments for most cabinet parts, it is unsurpassed. The quarter inch is the building block of everything. I still want to know how people think it's easier to divide a 19mm (or 20mm) rail into thirds than it is to do the same with a 3/4" one.

The above notwithstanding, when I cut panels or locate hardware, or measure anything that is not some increment of the design, I always use metric

Originally Posted by silentC

.... Most of the time I sneak up on it by tapping the fence a bit one way or the other till it's right.

Yairs, I like the sneakuponit approach too, but you only get one go with a sliding dovetail!

Originally Posted by silentC

.... In terms of design and general component set up, Imperial is streets ahead of metric. As a set of standard increments for most cabinet parts, it is unsurpassed. The quarter inch is the building block of everything.

Rubbish, young man - this is a purely cultural hangup of yours. Who's to say you can't use basic dimensions in metric that are divisble by 3, or any other number, depending on need or application? Is 6mm so vastly different from 6.54 in the grand scheme of things? (Apart from the fact that 6mm is easy to subdivide by 3, unlike 1/4 ) Proportions are more important than actual numbers.......

Originally Posted by silentC

... I still want to know how people think it's easier to divide a 19mm (or 20mm) rail into thirds than it is to do the same with a 3/4" one.

No easier & no more difficult. I do it the same way I divide any distance into equal parts. Just take a distance that is a convenient multiple of the number of parts you want & longer than the bit you wish to subdivide. Lay the ruler across the piece so that distance is included edge to edge, & mark off your intervals... (Damn that's windy to describe, but elementary to do!)

This gets back to precision and accuracy - when did you last meet a board that was supposed to be exactly 3/4 of an inch that actually was?? Like a lot of the old-timers here, I hark back to the days when most of my stock preparation was done with potatoe-powered machines (me!) and so I still work as I was taught as a kid at school by much older-timers, i.e. by marking off face & edge sides, using gauges, the piece to be fitted, etc. and minimising the use of rulers, because I (like a lot of the other responders have admitted too), still make an unacceptable number of errors reading rules of either kind......

Cheers,

Originally Posted by Waldo

The same tape measure for everything, it's to my 1m rule, for fine work my 6" Toledo (has both imperial and metric - but so does everything I measure with)

On the t/saw I have a Wixey readout, which means I can get spot on. On the thicky, r/table I also have a Wixey.

I mark all measurements with a clutch pencil with a one single line marked only, for rough cuts a tradies pencil. For the life of me, which I don't understand I've seen videos on FWW (the chair build from who to go is the best example http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworki...ayer/index.asp ) the bloke involved makes several marks with his pencil, so I'm stuffed to know how he knows which mark is the right one to cut to

Yep to all of the above, in addition I am currently installing DROs on my metal lathe and mill. The ability to display in metric or imperial, both decimal imperial and fractions, is great.

Those Wixey tools are the greatest.

Still prefer to measure in metric for all of the reasons mentioned by the proponents above. Not my idea of fun to add 3/32 to 7/64 (and yes I do know that gets to 13/64) and too easy to make a mistake.

It has a symmetry that metric does not have, that's all I'm saying.

3/4, 3/8, 1/4, 3/16 that template divides a 3/4" rail into 1, 2, 3, and 4 parts with a pure simplicity that you don't get with 19mm, 9.5mm, 6.3 and 4.75. Or let's try it with 20mm, 10mm, 6.6, and 5mm. That's better but still not as good. The third is a common unit in woodworking but metric hates thirds.

The 1/4" is your basic building block. Start with a 1/4" rail - the tenon is 1/4", neatly centred and so is the panel groove. Say your stile is 1" and you want the rail centred - 1/8" either side, 3/8" to the mortice. I can do it without even looking. The dimensions are so much easier to hold in your head than mm. You can't work in multiples of 5 because 15mm is too small for a rail. If you go for a 20mm rail, you might go for an 8mm tenon to make life easier. So now we're looking at 6mm shoulders. But is the panel groove going to be 8mm? Or do you stick with a 1/4" (or 6.4mm) tenon? Then you have problems planning the mortice and other intersecting parts. You have to go to the centre and work outwards. Make sure the rail has enough clearance from other cabinet parts. If everything is based around the 1/4" you know it does.

How about this? Let's work in fractions of 25mm. Call it the ninch. 3/4 of a ninch. Has a nice ring to it and it's based on the metric system.

Not my idea of fun to add 3/32 to 7/64

I'll ask again. Why on earth do you ever need to do that? What sort of woodworking are you doing that requires you to add weird measurements like that? If everything is based on the 1/4" then you never have that problem. Worst you might have to do is to divide a space up into even partitions or something, in which case, unless you have to make it fit something you can't change, the sensible thing to do is design your cabinet around nice easy measurements. Three 6" partitions = 18". 3/4" dividers between each - 18" + 1 1/2" = 19 1/2". So simple....

Originally Posted by silentC

The quarter inch is the building block of everything.

Originally Posted by silentC

The 1/4" is your basic building block.

I think I got that the first time

But I would respectfully disagree with the 1/4" being the basic building block of "everything".

Obviously not of everything. In cabinet making it is a useful design increment. But it craps all over the half centimetre

It's not the inch that is the be all and end all, for me it is the method of working fractionally that I find suits the task so well. In my humble opinion

Originally Posted by IanW

Rubbish, young man - this is a purely cultural hangup of yours. Who's to say you can't use basic dimensions in metric that are divisble by 3, or any other number, depending on need or application? Is 6mm so vastly different from 6.54 in the grand scheme of things? (Apart from the fact that 6mm is easy to subdivide by 3, unlike 1/4 ) Proportions are more important than actual numbers...

'Zactly! There's nothing to stop a person from using 1 33/64cm if they so desire. It's just a convention to stick to purely decimal when using metric.

I'm sure we've all seen the imperial vernier calipers which have two reference scales: one to measure in 1/100ths of an inch and the other to measure in 1/64ths? Well, I bought a cheap chaiwanese set in metric! Two reference scales: one in 1/10ths of a mm and one in 1/16ths.

It's absolutely bloody useless; when tested on a 10mm reference object they actually read about 11.5mm but they make a great idiot attractor...

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

I'm sure we've all seen the imperial vernier calipers which have two reference scales: one to measure in 1/100ths of an inch and the other to measure in 1/64ths? Well, I bought a cheap chaiwanese set in metric! Two reference scales: one in 1/10ths of a mm and one in
1/16ths.

I have a (US) ruler here that is marked in 1/10th inches, their idea of the decimal system I guess.

On the US pen forum they talk about "metric ounces", didn't know what that was at first, turns out it is 30ml

I have a (US) ruler here that is marked in 1/10th inches, their idea of the decimal system I guess.

Mine has got 10ths, 20ths and 50ths on one edge and 32nds etc on the other. Must say I've not found a use for 1/10" yet.

Originally Posted by silentC

Mine has got 10ths, 20ths and 50ths on one edge and 32nds etc on the other. Must say I've not found a use for 1/10" yet.

With due reference to the title of this thread, I think we have now descended to a "mine is bigger than yours level" and I will respectfully bow out

Originally Posted by IanW

Another thread hijack!!!!

The original question is how you measure & mark, not which system you use.

Cheers,

Since I mentioned 32nds and 64ths, I opened the thread to "systems" comments
as well.

I work in metric as well as the right system, it is just how you learned.
Adding 3/64 and 7/32 is very natural for me.

Sometimes I find it easier to find the center of stock using metric.

As well a lot of the ply we get is metric, they just call it 23/32 or what ever.

I grew up learning from my Dad, who is an absolute perfectionist. He built race
boats that had to meet rules. There were very tight regulations. They were 8'
with no tolerance for over and 1/8" for under. Same for beam and the weight
had to be 50lbs minimum.

It is 17/64 BTW!