Thread: Imperial vs Metric system

Originally Posted by Steamwhisperer

I should do a thread extolling the virtues of the Imperial system and the pitfalls of the Metric system.

I for one, would love to have a thread just like that.

Originally Posted by Steamwhisperer

I'm backing you up 100% Bruce.
I have noticed that there has been a few shots at the Imperial system lately.
I reckon the only reason Metric took off is because people forgot how to count to 12 .
Does anyone know which system came first?
I should do a thread extolling the virtues of the Imperial system and the pitfalls of the Metric system.
I just know I'm going to be bashed halfway into next week now
Love the imperial system Bruce but am proficient in both systems, can the metricified (another new word) say the same.

Phil

Are you suggesting the Imperial system is based around 12?

If only!

Just try and cost a paint formula in lbs and ozs, gallons, pints and fl.ozs, with the cost in pounds, shillings and pence. No wonder we worked in metric units long before metric was brought in in Oz.

The Imperial system existed before the metric system, there were heaps of other measurements as well.

The metric system was brought in on the Continent under Napoleon, which is why the British could never bring themselves to accept that it was a very logical system.

Oh and 12 is also a number in the metric system

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Are you suggesting the Imperial system is based around 12?

If only!

Just try and cost a paint formula in lbs and ozs, gallons, pints and fl.ozs, with the cost in pounds, shillings and pence. No wonder we worked in metric units long before metric was brought in in Oz.

The Imperial system existed before the metric system, there were heaps of other measurements as well.

The metric system was brought in on the Continent under Napoleon, which is why the British could never bring themselves to accept that it was a very logical system.

Oh and 12 is also a number in the metric system

I'm beginning to agree Fred,
I just did a preliminary bit of research on both systems and it is painfully obvious why we and most of the rest of the world has gone Metric.
Not so much on how easy the Metric system is but how difficult the Imperial is. I think there may have been quite a few slabs of VB around when they thought imperial up .
Still love it though .

Phil

"virtues of the Imperial system" It makes metric look good?
How many lbs in a hundred weight again?

Has Knots survived?

p.s. One of the problems with the imp system was there were about 70 of them if memory serves(though I believe there were a few metrics kicking about for a while also).

Metric time never made it though. Score 1 for the imp team.

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Oh and 12 is also a number in the metric system

As a total deviation.... Everyone remember at primary school the multiplication tables getting drummed into you.. Up to 12X12... Even today think they still do it...

It would not surprise me if that is a leftover idea from the imperial measurement years...

I whole heartedly agree that the Imperial system was quite clumsy in a few/lot of areas and were termed with names we don't use much in todays language.......(furlong, rod, pole, perch, dram....)
But.....how about System 32?????? (Cabinet Making basis for white board cupboards)
It is based around using 16mm thick pynebord/MDF
The distance between the face edge of a carcase is 37mm. This is where you screw on hinges through a plate that you fix the hinge onto
Handle are commonly fitted into holes 96mm apart
And so it goes on. Clumsy measurements.....16, 32, 96mm......all quite happily living in "System 32"

Maybe the French were having another shot at the Poms by throwing in these measurements

The first measuring system was based on the human body. The yard was a normal step for a man. It is my understanding imperial is roughly based on this. Inch is knuckle to knuckle etc. No wonder there are so many versions. When it comes to which one I prefer, any work involving decimal sizes below one foot and I am happy to use imperial because then I am actually using a base 10 system. Anything over one foot and I start to wonder why I am bashing myself over the head. I have found I tend to go to the metric drills much more than imperial now.

As I have said before my lathe is a mix of both as I had to make a new cross slide wheel using a SS metric tape for the grads. 375mm around exactly so 3cm on tape is 0.001" on radius cut. Then my drawings are in metric so I convert it but I use an imperial mic cos thats all I have in 0-1 size and I prefer them anyway cos I am used to them.

Dean

Originally Posted by .RC.

As a total deviation.... Everyone remember at primary school the multiplication tables getting drummed into you.. Up to 12X12... Even today think they still do it...

It would not surprise me if that is a leftover idea from the imperial measurement years...

Since bean counters have always had more power than engineers I think that one is a left over from the currency system rather than imperial.

As none of my gear is calibrated I dont use either system. I work in Stu's which is a base 10 system very much like metric with 1 Stu being somewhere around a meter. I also use Old Stu's, by staggering coincidence there are 25.4 mStu's in an Old Stu.

Old Stus is a base 10 system on top of a base 12, base 3, base 22, base 10, base 8 system........easy.
Sounds like I'm making it up as I go along doesn't it*?

The important one being 1 chain.. the distance between the wickets at the cricket.

Stuart

*which I guess is fair enough as that's how the imp system was came along.

Originally Posted by Steamwhisperer

Does anyone know which system came first?
Phil

The inch/foot system came first by several centuries - but which one? Many countries including France, and even cities, had their own versions. There is a list of some of the common ones here: File:Inch converter.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
The summary below the photo is easier to read and probably more meaningful, since all the various inches have been converted to millimetres for easy comparison. Presumably the conversion table must have been published because equipment or drawings using the obsolete measurements were still in use at the time.

The British were probably among the earlier ones to define their inch. For at least a couple of centuries before the formal definition the inch had been accepted as being the length of three barleycorns placed end to end.
One of the earliest such definitions is that of 1324, where the legal definition of the inch was set out in a statute of Edward II of England, defining it as "three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end, lengthwise". (From Wiki). Later legal definitions were more precise!

We complain about having to cope with both imperial and metric measurements. Think of the problems for a travelling journeyman moving from country to country three hundred years ago.

Frank.

I generally use the "close-enough" system of measurement - there are only 3 measurements to remember, the "smidgin", the "poofteenth" and the all-purpose "that much".

Calculations are easy and there is never a wrong answer (thanks to the wonders of the "putback" tool aka the welder).

I found this article in Wikipedia quite interesting, especially the Etomolgy chapter, also the bit about the contribution to the Imperial system by our US cousins, the decimal inch.

Inch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For a top read on how the metric system came into being and what drove the process, The Measure of All Things by Ken Adler. 2 guys doing a super accurate survey from Dunkirk to Barcelona while the French Revolution and French/Spanish border wars swirled all around them.

One thing that I do admire about the imperial system is that even people with no machining experience can confidently work to millionths of an inch. Using a 15/64" drill bit for instance = 0.234375