Thread: U.S. members: 1 meter steel ruler

We went metric in 1970 I was umm........well a teenager. Anyway I think in milimetres up to a metre then go back to feet For things like boats I still can't relate to something that is 4.75 metres long.

I'm in all sorts of bother at the momemt the Coquina plans are feet and inches hmmmm trying to remember how to divide fractions again
I have been forcing myself to measure everything in inches must admit for on longer measurements eg 56" it's seems more comfortable than 1422mm.

Interestingly all tapes rules etc that I've bought in recent times have both units the makers must the catering for all the baby boomer boat builders

I had already received part of my schooling when they changed over.

I have a clear understanding of most of the metric system, however I do have some interesting anomalies.

People's height has to be feet and inches.
People's weight has to be pounds and ounces
Boat stats - length, beam, weight, sail area have to be imperial, though strangely ballast computes in metric.

A lot of fasteners and marine fittings are still sold in imperial in OZ too. Builders have probably noticed that I have a bias toward 3/16 and 10 gauge fasteners!

And ply I am ambidextrous.

Who said the world had to make sense!?

MIK

yeah well the boat plans i bought from america are all in feet and inches.dam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.no one in oz makes that anymore so i tried and tried to get the wood people interested and helpfull but total failure.so one day i bumped into a bloke he said try #$%^ so i did but instead of inches he could do it in mm's close to what i needed.but after translating feet to metres and such the boat was going to be 2 and a quarter inches shorter width wise and maybe 3 inches shorter so saved and just bought a 16 foot ski boat with a 202 cubic inch motor .does 35 mph .just the boat i was going to build would of done 70.oh well i still have a 302 in the garage maybe next year.go millimeters its so easy everyone..........like oh thats 347 mm long .....not 6inches and 4 of those little ones lol
cheerrs

The in-laws have a small country property, and last year we built a shed to keep the hay dry, well talk about a nightmare they are well into their 60's and every measurement was in feet and inches.

When asked why they do it like this, it turns out the trusty old tape measure only has imperial on it, and it is still perfectly good so why buy a new one just yet.

Catch up people, catch up...

jee blokes (ozzie thing) why did all the different countrys do inches to stay in touch?europe of course did it so everyone new the mm's.australia being a opart of the united kingdom and a queen stayed with them till 68???? i remember my last 2 yrs of high school we did metric.......but.... we still have inches but at school everyone is taught metric? everything but wood lol its a funny old world we live in

I worked with an old dutch carpenter for years and he measured things with a tape that had both measurements on it. He would say a piece of timber was 4 meters (turn tape over) 3 and a half inches . We built things, no probs.

Originally Posted by Pagie

I worked with an old dutch carpenter for years and he measured things with a tape that had both measurements on it. He would say a piece of timber was 4 meters (turn tape over) 3 and a half inches . We built things, no probs.

A novel approach indeed.

What gets me frustrated is the use of centimetres. Measurement is so easy if it's just millimetres. CM were never intended to be used in Aust. as I understand it, and they still get everyone confused. But it's handy to be bi-lingual in measuring length.

People's height is in feet & inches
Their weight is in Kg.
Except for babies who weigh in pounds.

Most measurements under an inch are in mm.
Most measurements under a metre are in feet & inches.
Most measurements 1 metre over are in metres.
Except for boats, which just don't sound right except in feet ("she's a 30 footer mate"
vs "she's 9-and-a-bit metres mate". I know how wide a 7'11" beam is. Couldn't relate
it to a 2.4M beam to save my life. But I quite happily buy 2.4M extrusions & lengths
of wood.

Area is normally in acres.
Except when it's in hectares.

Volume is in litres. Always.
Except when it's a 2 gallon bucket or a 44 gallon drum.

And now my brain hurts.

Yep and it's the same in the Refridg/AC industry, copper tube in imperial, sheet metal duct in metric, capacity in KW or BTU depending on who you talking too and I agree with you Rob, if we worked in Millimeters and meters and threw out the CM's we would be far better off

Kev, I have a plan to ease us into driving on the right hand side of the road over a period of 20 years, either side being permissible for this period. We won't have any problems with that will we?

Originally Posted by rob540

Kev, I have a plan to ease us into driving on the right hand side of the road over a period of 20 years, either side being permissible for this period. We won't have any problems with that will we?

I can't wrap by brain around driving on the left side of the road to save my life! If I tried it, I'd surely cause a head-on within the first 100 meters of pulling outta the driveway

Rick, that just reminded me of a time when i was married and we went to Vanuatu for a holiday, hired a car, went for a drive and just when I thought "well this isn't so hard" yep you guessed it... nearly wiped out a couple of locals...who incidently thought it was hillarious

Originally Posted by Rick_Tatum

I can't wrap by brain around driving on the left side of the road to save my life! If I tried it, I'd surely cause a head-on within the first 100 meters of pulling outta the driveway

It's really really simple

you just position the car so that the white line down the centre of the road is beside the driver's door