USA going metric?

[Cooter Brown]

I've used both in work situations and frankly prefer standard.

In cabinetmaking I try to work within a 1/32" tolerance. A millimeter is larger than 1/32"--1/32" is about .8mm. It's more accurate when working with rules etc. you can actually see.

The standard system is also more intuitive. Draw a line. Divide it in half. Divide each of those segments in half. Now divide each of those sections in half, and so on. You have quarters, eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds, etc.

It's the way the mind works. The mind doesn't work in tenths. At least mine doesn't.

I'm not a super high end woodworker, but I know a few. They could all work with metric measurements if they wanted to, but I don't know any that do, including some European transplants.

Of course with metric the math is generally easier. For a lot of engineering applications metric is probably superior. That's why I have a calculator that does fractions...

As far as wrenches etc., I don't mind having both--you'll never hear me complaining about having too many tools! And since fasteners are hardly ever marked anyway, I'm still stuck with trying them til one fits!

 

[Beemerguy53]

The reason the dollar coin failed in the US was the manufacturers of the coin vending machines. They said the dollar coin could be no larger in diameter than a current quarter coin. That way they wouldn't have to refurbish all of their coin vending machines to take the new dollar coin. Since the dollar coin and quarter were so very similar in size, they were constantly getting mixed up by consumers. The consumers complained to Congress and the quarter size dollar coin has become history.

Euros, both coins and paper money, are different sizes for each denomination, and the vending machine manufacturers in Europe seem to handle it just fine...

 

[LittleCooner]

Never going to work here guys.

OK, just popped off 324 mg of Unique behind those 10173 miligrams Berrys in my 0.90678 S & W Magnum. Shot a 3.8 mm group at 23 meters, wow. great load and the gun is working.

OK, anyone here have the least bit of clue what I just posted?

Well, I loaded 5 grains of Unique behind a 157 grain bullet in my 357 Magnum and shot a 1 1/2 inch group at 25 yards. Everyone can think and relate to that. The first statement, no one has a clue what you just did. WE DO NOT THINK IN METRIC AND NEVER WILL NO MATTER WHAT SOME ONE DICTATES US TO DO OR USE.

 

[Faulkner]

In High School they said we would change to the metric system in the U.S.
soon. I graduated in 1960.

I graduated high school in 1979 and I remember the math and science teachers telling us the United States would be using mostly metric within 10 years. I never really worried about it because many of these same teachers were telling us that global warming would kill the planet in 20 years, so why bother learning a new measurment system that I'd only be using for 10 years before the end of the world anyway.

 

[finesse_r]

So I see where some fellow running for office wants the USA to go metric...well, here's what I have to say about that...

My seventh grade science teacher told me the USA was going metric back in 1958. It took a while, but there is little doubt the socialist and globalists are taking us there. Anything they can do to break down the culture and uniqueness of the USA.

 

[BC38]

The thing I've always liked about the metric system is the unity between the different systems of measure (size, weight, energy) and that it is base 10 system (vs base 12, base 16, etc).
1 calorie = energy to raise 1 cubic cm of water 1 degree Celsius,
1 gram = 1 cubic cm of water,
10 mm = 1 cm,
10 cm = 1 dm,
10 dm = 1 m
10 cm water = 1 dL
10 dL = 1 L
boiling point of water is 100 degrees and freezing is 0 degrees
etc.

It just makes more sense than the mixed units in the English system where
12 in = 1 foot
3 feet = 1 yard
1 pound = 16 oz
boiling point of water is 212 degrees and freezing is 32
and worst of all there is no direct relationship between distance, weight, temp, energy...

Heck, the English have even abandoned the English system of weights and mesures

 

[Vegetaman]

As a software developer, having to maintain conversion tables and capabilities to switch between metric and english is a pain and would be nice to see if go away. Also when I used to work in a tractor shop and we had two sets of tools -- metric and standard. Some manufacturers (like John Deere) had metric stuff. But older equipment and other suppliers were using the old US stuff.

 

[Old TexMex]

Fine measurement has always been "metric" that is if you're talking like a thirty thou' shim. For heavens sake, the odometer on my pickup shows tenths of a mile. Like Calaveras said: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Once again, a solution for a nonexistant problem.
It's not HOW we think, it's WHAT we're thinkin'. Look at the mess the metric world is in.
Besides, the universe is 360 degrees. The Great Architect applied the rule of twelve. It's everywhere you look. The rule of ten was made up by man tryin to play God.
My head hurts.... I gotta go.......

 

[Donn]

Which metric system do we buy into? The Japanese metric is different from the British. If you've got a late model American car or truck, you know most of the fasteners are metric. On my GMC pickup, they're 10, 13 and 15mm for the most part, except the water pump. They're still 9/16th fractional.

 

[Snallygaster]

All for it. (Excluding metric time [emoji12])

 

[CCantu357]

Most of the bolts on my 2004 Chevy Truck are metric. It does make it easier when grabbing a wrench or a socket on the fly. And, 10mm Auto sounds better than .40 Short and Weak. That being said, learning fractions makes a person smarter, and Electra 225 sounds better than Electra 571. We speak the English language, and our measurements should be in the same diction as well. But opinions vary.

 

[Ogandydancer]

I despise (NO make that hate) anything with Torx head screws and anything metric. The man that came up with the Torx heads should be hung from the nearest screw making machine.

 

[jdh]

PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE........


If it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT

Funny you should say that given your location. Do you know that all TXDOT highway contract have been specified in the metric system for decades? You can tell the difference when you see a new section of a highway butted up to an older highway.

On the first new car I bought, a 1978 El Camino, I had to have both metric and SAE tools.

 

[Old TexMex]

Funny you should say that given your location. Do you know that all TXDOT highway contract have been specified in the metric system for decades? You can tell the difference when you see a new section of a highway butted up to an older highway.

I didn't know that! I guess metric asphalt is smoother? And metric bridges are stronger? No, probably just more expensive and contracted to a foreign company. The width and weight regs are still feet/inches and pounds. The tickets are still MPH and the fines are still in US dollars (which are metric).

As are the taxes that we pay for them.
Here's some interesting thread drift:
First highway under foreign control, TxDOT inks deal for 1st leg of Trans Texas Corridor

 

[Beemerguy53]

I despise (NO make that hate) anything with Torx head screws and anything metric. The man that came up with the Torx heads should be hung from the nearest screw making machine.

Why do you hate Torx fasteners?

I first encountered them on a 1979 Oldsmobile I bought, and I admit I didn't like the idea of having to buy new sockets or wrenches then, but over the years I've gotten used to them.

My 2013 BMW R1200R motorcycle uses only Torx fasteners throughout, and some of my folding pocket knives use them as well. I find the sizes are easy to work with, you can apply a lot more torque to them than to a slotted, Philips, Allen, or hex head bolt, and their shape makes it almost impossible to bugger up a screw head.

JMO...

 

[Donn]

Had a '71 Pinto with a German engine, my first exposure to metric fasteners and a trip to Sears for a Craftsman metric socket set. Since then, I waited for sales and bought wrenches & sockets two at a time, fractional and metric. Need twice the storage space now.

 

[DeathGrip]

Had a '71 Pinto with a German engine, my first exposure to metric fasteners and a trip to Sears for a Craftsman metric socket set. Since then, I waited for sales and bought wrenches & sockets two at a time, fractional and metric. Need twice the storage space now.

The OHC engine in my pinto had about a ten or twelve point torx like head bolt. I still have that tool in my box and haven't used it since the early eighties.

 

[LVSteve]

Forget SAE and Metric, Whitworth is the way to go!

(Posted from a very deep bunker)

 

[kantuck]

"Wrong" I think not. Try working 40+ years in industry in a hands on capacity and then tell us how to do it. It is no different than the "solution" to keep hijackers out of airplane cockpits, the death toll from that brilliant solution has recently surpassed the 9/11 death toll.

Short of confiscating and destroying ALL equipment from scissors up to and including military equipment and national grid infrastructure, this inane push to be "just like the Europeans" is nothing but a liberal power trip.

It is called making it work in the real world.

Dear making it,
I must inform you that I did work in a skilled trade(more than one) and I did/do know metric and inch. I also taught a skilled trade. 10 plus years in military too. Real world as you can get is me...
I'll admit though, that as a track & filed fanatic , when I read the NCAA results in the news the other days I don't really know how far nor how fast they went?
I was reading specs on some oil filters on a crossover chart yesterday & find it interesting that the overall measurements are all inches and the threads on some, are metric, others inch. Kinda weird.

 

[andy3539]

Metric

Worked for a company that used the metric system for the last 50 tears. Caterpillar.