USA going metric?

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I'm all for it. Its much easier to use as it uses the deci system (base 10) not base 12 like 12" = 1'. I hate it when people can't read a tape measure so they are calling everything in inches and I have to convert it in my head. SAE sockets: its a pain converting size like is a 5/8" socket smaller/bigger than 11/16" socket? Bigger. Try it out only to find out still too small. Then find the next size and convert in head.

There's also economic benefits. Canada sells a lot of lumber to Japan. Its cut in Ca because its stacks easier to ship than raw logs. Its all metric cuts.

The science field is already converted to metric so it would be comfortable to design flight systems (not to mention international parts suppliers/builders).
 
A firm to the North of me makes industrial pumps. The are now owned by a German firm, and redesigned the entire line to metric about 15 years ago. Every metric Pump was recalled, destroyed, and replaced with a SAE pump! The reason? Nobody in the world makes the precision fitting bolts, that have tolerances to withstand the extreme pressures evolved! Nothing like having acid spraying all over your clean little factory!

There is so much quality machinery in SAE on this planet, that fractional wrenches and sockets will be in the tool chests for a couple centuries after the world goes to some other system.

People have extolled the virtues of Metric for quit some time. That still won't make it a good system. It is based on a 1/400,000 of the earths diameter, and that diameter only as it runs through Paris France! That is as universal as 1/12 of some king's foot, or 5280 of that king's feet.

I know that in Australia the standard system was outlawed, as in get rid of all tape measures in SAE. Yet when my Aussy friends come to America, They take home (read that; SMUGGLE) cases of SAE scale Stanley tape measures that also happen to be one inch wide!

Europe like the metric scale because they were tired of getting new rulers every time they got conquered. We on the other hand would prefer to remain independent, unconquered, and get back to business as usual. Let the losers use something from France! Ivan
 
I have thought about this and while the metric system is great for the power of 10 thing thats about it.

I hate the fact that I have to have more wrenches to cover the same ground in metric. Why do they need to make something in 10, 11,12, 13, 14, and 15 (6 wrenches) when 1/4, 5/16, 1/2 and 9/16 (4 wrenches) covers the same ground.

Plus, I spend a long time in the oil business. Converting all the piping, components and equipment to metric would be a logistical and extremely expensive nightmare. I did a piping system once that used some metric equipment and adapters had to be made up for every attachment point so it could be connected to SAE piping. They could have gotten metric pipe and fittings, but then it would mean adapters everywhere that piping attached to the existing system.

I also build a trailer mounted rock crusher system from metric plans. What fun. Easy enough to convert the measurements, but then where it called out for steel made with metric, I had to use available SAE steel, and everything had to be adjusted to keep the proper heights and widths.
 
I was in an engineering and drafting department for 21 years. we had inch drawings , "soft" metric which with the 25.4 magic number converted directly to inch measurements and "hard" metric drawings which as the name implies were metric in all ways. when work with drawings that hold tolerances to .0001 and then try to make a "hard" metric drawing it is hard to think of a .0001 tolerance in metric terms.
 
Personally I wish that we would JUST MAKE UP OUR MINDS. During the 70's and 80's every GM car made had Metric fasteners on the body but SAE fasteners on the engine and brakes. As a result anyone working on one of these cars had to have both SAE and Metric tools. Today the most Machining centers will be mostly Metric but you will still find SAE fasteners on them.

For example a common quick change tool post for a Lathe will have an SAE nut for the main swivel/clamp. But the individual tool holders that drop into the dovetails on the tool post will have set screws to clamp the cutting tools that use a 5mm Hex Key. Note, 5mm is just a bit larger than 3/16 inch, so guess what gets used when the Machinist doesn't have some Metric Hex Keys handy. Ever try to find Metric set screw at the local hardware store to replace the ones that have stripped out sockets due to the use of 3/16 inch Hex Keys?

Another very useful tool we use is a Sine Vice. It's used in a surface grinder or milling machine to profile a very exact angle. The clamp screw for the Vice part is an M8 Metric, which features a 6mm hex socket. Good news here is a 1/4 inch hex key won't fit unless you use a large hammer to drive it in. Bad news is that I have seen some hacks reach for a hammer. More bad news is that the "wings" that actually lock the angle in place use 1/4-20 screws. Yeah, one single specialty vice requires having both SAE and Metric hex keys on hand.

To say the Metric System has been slowly driving me nuts might be an understatement.
 
The most powerful industrial force on earth got that way inch by inch. Every time there is another round of metric mania, US industry slips further and further into worldwide mediocrity.

We have gone from leaders to followers, and quality and innovation have dropped as a result.
 
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We already went Metric. It did not work, so we went back! Those who are not history students are bound to repeat the same mistakes. Alabama Department of Transportation converted everything to Metric in the early '90's. Plans and construction were all 'hard' metric. It was an absolute nightmare. Then they spent millions of dollars putting up the mile post in metric and taking down the old mile post. The **** hit the fan. Taxpayer revolt, can open, worms everywhere, Pandora's box was open and mayhem was more than even Allstate could deal with, so the politicians made them convert back to English so the traveling public could ones again determine where they where when traveling the public road. Favorite employee phrase in the early 1990's - RBM = Retired before Metric. Lived thru the disaster and can tell everyone, "its not going to work".
 
I remember we were all gonna do this 40 years ago. Some other stuff happened about this time I remember that proved not so beneficial to this country, but I don't want a ding so I won't go there.:rolleyes:
So, if we go Metric, does that mean the NFL will be the CFL South?:eek:
Jim
 
I'm still suffering through the agony of buying a 750 ml bottle of tequila when I was raised on buying a "fifth". (for you kids, a "fifth" was 1/5 of a gallon or 25.6 fluid ounces)

Are you still with me? Good! Converting 25.6 fluid ounces to the metric system ends up with 757.082 milliliters (ml).

The bottles now contain 750 ml. So in the conversion we have lost 7.082 ml which, as you know, is very important. That is, roughly, a 1/4 fl. oz.

Here is the hard fact: For every 4 -750 ml bottles you drink, you have lost 1- 1 oz. shot. Folks, that's 3 shots per case! Gone! No where to be seen!

And people say there are no consequences to conversion.
 
Two of my cars are metric, two of my cars are a mixture of SAE and Whitworth, all my motorcycles are metric, and my next car will be metric. Some of my guns are SAE and some are metric. Somehow I have managed to survive. What I don't understand is hat size. 7 1/4 what?
 
Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee brought this up in his announcement that he was running for President. Apparently he thinks this is some kind of "hot button" issue. I've dealt with our current system for the past 70 years. Whenever I'm forced to deal with something metric I'm easily confused. I did live in Germany for 7 years and the only thing metric that I got used to was kilometers. Maybe that was because my speedometer showed both. I remember driving to England on a vacation. It was a challenge to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road as soon as you drove off the ferry. The one easy thing about driving there was all the speed limit signs were in miles per hour. The road signs were also in English.
 
Speedometers? I get torqued when some airspeed indicators are in knots, others in mph. And the manual states operating speeds in mph.

Now they are going to change them to klicks?

Had an instructor tell me to make the approach at 55. He meant knots, but the aircraft was marked only in MPH. Very high power setting, full flaps, and about a 25' rollout, he about had kittens. Turns out it was way beyond his personal flight envelope, but not mine. I wondered if he knew what he was doing, apparently not.

Mixing up units of measure in an industry WILL cause problems.
 
Dope dealers and liquor and soda pop manufacturers use metric, so why not the rest of us?

The use of the metric system in the USA is legal and used by many. The USA is actually bilingual regarding its weights and measures, and most people have no problem with it. Makes at least as much sense as using the archaic "grains" to measure bullet and powder weight, which is based on the weight of some kind of seed, later decreed to be 1/7000 of a pound.
 
I remember back in the 70s there was a big push to go metric. There were some billboards around town that showed a ruler marked 1mm, 2mm, etc and the words THINK METRIC!.
But then somebody noticed the the ruler was actually graduated in 1/16s of an inch. :eek:

If you think Japanese metric is tough, try dealing with English metric hydraulic fittings. :mad:
 
Here's a picture of my Model 29-3, 10.9MM Magnum.

76e4610cc525967ca05e08d8b0f9c72e.jpg



Just don't have the same ring to it, does it? :D
 
colkid said:
In High School they said we would change to the metric system in the U.S.
soon. I graduated in 1960.
Click to expand...

heard the same thing nearly 30 years later.
In theory, it makes perfect sense as it is an intuitive system to work with.

In practice, I'm still going to need a 5/8" socket to remove the lawnmower blades so I can sharpen them with a 10" wheel, prior to mowing a half acre of grass, because the wife hit some 14 ga steel wire with it earlier this week.
 
Well, folks, I honestly didn't expect my little quip to get such a big response! I just saw that meme on a social media site, laughed myself silly, and had to share it... :)

Seriously, though, I have no problem dealing with the metric system. My motorcycles have all been metric, and I haven't owned a non-metric car since I sold my last MG (which was not my daily driver) in 1992. I travel to Europe regularly, and I'm comfortable with the distance signs and speedometers, etc.

Having said that, I cannot imagine the USA converting to metric, at least right now. The cost of changing over just our highway signs, maps, etc., would be unbelievable!

Thanks for the thoughtful and humorous responses...you guys are great! :)
 
I have needed both SAE and metric sockets to get under every vehicle I've owned for the last 20 years. The oil pan drain plug went from SAE to metric on my 2010 from the previous 2003. No worries, converting to metric is the least "invasive" of .gov intent. Joe
 
Beyond all the rationalizations and philosophical justifications:

I think we stick to our customary units for the same reason that the British still drive on the left side of the road: It's a relic of the past and we're too lazy to change it, so we re-interpret it into a cherished part of our identity; and for Americans, any change would have to be dictatorily imposed by government, which is an additional reason to be against it no matter whether it makes sense or not.

The fact that the US military has been using the metric system for decades should at least indicate that there isn't anything somehow unpatriotic about it, an undertone one detects in surprisingly many arguments condemning the metric system.
 
Metric makes too much sense to be adopted here. This country is incapable of going metric. Nothing to do with the citizenry, the management is incompetent.

Canada went metric was back in the early 1970s. Only took them a year or two. They've also adopted a universal health care insurance program that works. They did that in the seventies too. It's not perfect but is a damn sight better than what our clowns in DC have foisted onto us.

And then there's the dollar coin thing. The canadians had figured that printing one and two dollar bills was a money losing proposition around the same time as the US. Coins lasted longer and therefore were cheaper.

We've tried it how many times? And we're still using paper ones and coins? The solution to making it work as effected by Canada was to simply stop printing one and two dollar bills. And the banks werr instructed to remove the paper denominations as they came in. Duh!

Sometimes we have too much of a blonde mentality here in the US of A.

John
 
I had a Kubota tractor and still have a Kubota mower, all metric. Anyone that works on anything themselves has to have double sets of everything. The US gov't tried to get everyone to go metric back in the 90's but failed because of the cost that they weren't willing to pay. They mandated that all DOT's replace all of their signs on interstates with metric and threatened to cut off fed funds if they didn't. Well most states just said they couldn't afford it and just ignored the fed. The fed was bluffing and everyone knew it. That fiasco cost the tax payer millions.

From a civil, architectural, mechanical stand point it makes sense. Civil is feet and hundredths of a foot, architectural/carpentry is feet and fractions of an inch and mechanical is inches and hundredths of an inch. All three different systems of measurement and all three in common use in the US. With the metric system there is only one unit, the meter. The conversion error of our three systems costs millions each year. I had to make the conversions everyday at work. There is 3.2808333 feet in a meter. I didn't have to look it up. When I started a new project I always purchased a box of tapes that had both feet/hundredths and feet/inches so the carpenters could use the surveyors dimensions. I passed them out when I got asked what the conversion was. I could always count on a carpenter to supply me with material anytime I needed it.
 
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