dwacker Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Good joinery is a matter of a thousandth of an inch. I can certainly see wanting to lay it out to 1/64th during design. I routinely draw things down to the half mill, which is about the same. That's the limitation of my pencil line though. I could see that with hand joinery not machine joinery possibly. You don't really use rulers to set up machines where dimensioning is critical. Even with hand joinery lay out is usually done to a nice easy to read number. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doomwolf Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Completely OT, but our (re: Canadian) submarine fleet is a clear example of how not to do military procurement. We bought them from the UK second-handwhere they had been sitting in the mothballs for several years with water in the fuel tanks that rusted out internal components. One caught fire coming from the UK, and there was a period none of our four subs were cleared to submerge or fire torpedoes.* They are only now operational and no replacements are planned even though they are years older than some of their crew (unlike our Sea King helicopters, which are decades older than all of their crew.....) *we had to send guys to train with the Aussies so they didn't forget how to run a submarine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williaty Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Completely OT, but our (re: Canadian) submarine fleet is a clear example of how not to do military procurement. We bought them from the UK second-handwhere they had been sitting in the mothballs for several years with water in the fuel tanks that rusted out internal components. One caught fire coming from the UK, and there was a period none of our four subs were cleared to submerge or fire torpedoes.* They are only now operational and no replacements are planned even though they are years older than some of their crew (unlike our Sea King helicopters, which are decades older than all of their crew.....) *we had to send guys to train with the Aussies so they didn't forget how to run a submarine You think that's bad, we have several B-52s with their 3rd generation of the same family flying the same airframe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodger. Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Completely OT, but our (re: Canadian) submarine fleet is a clear example of how not to do military procurement. We bought them from the UK second-handwhere they had been sitting in the mothballs for several years with water in the fuel tanks that rusted out internal components. One caught fire coming from the UK, and there was a period none of our four subs were cleared to submerge or fire torpedoes.* They are only now operational and no replacements are planned even though they are years older than some of their crew (unlike our Sea King helicopters, which are decades older than all of their crew.....) *we had to send guys to train with the Aussies so they didn't forget how to run a submarine Didn't know that, thanks! My brother is in the cdn military, but he was little help with navy questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weithman5 Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 don't worry my fine canadian friends. we got the sound channels covered for ya Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pghmyn Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 I've done so much stuff in Metric for school, I can visualize it quite easily now. However, I still reference back to the good old Imperial just because that is how I've always done it. Neither system bothers me, it's just I've used one much longer than the other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RPCV_Woodworker Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 That's just not true. It's like saying that the smallest functional unit of English unit is inches. Half-millimeter (about 1/50th of an inch) graduated rulers are easily available for no more money than 1mm graduated rulers. Tenth-millimeter (about 1/250th of an inch) are also available at a dramatically increased price and aren't very useful without magnification. Ah see, I haven't been able to find any with the smaller graduations in Western PA (not a huge market, and I try to buy from brick-and-mortar shops) Where I'm at now, you're lucky if the rulers are actually measuring as marked... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponderingturtle Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 I'd love to think in metric. It is truly a superior system. But in a practical woodworking sense I don't know if it makes good sense. Plywood in 18 or 19mm doesn't really make for easy math. Hardwood projects at 12,7 mm (yeah I used a comma as a decimal (another weird part of the metric system)) doesn't help sell the system either. It seems that in the business the metric folks are accommodating the imperial system. I like inches because a door for example is 36" or 42" or 30". A door 914.4 mm wide doesn't make it simple. 1000mm would. 900 wouldn't be bad. Maybe in Europe construction is more "even" in mm. Still the 3 digits to express 3' or 36" is a hurdle Steve But all the digits and fractions needed to express 2m is also a pain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ponderingturtle Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 i ran a nuclear reactor/submarine depth was in feet, pressure in pounds per square inch. horsepower. temperature in farenheit, range was in yards. refrigeration in btu, pump flow rates in gallons, electical symtem was in metric, kilowats. also born and raised in Ohio. go Buckeyes Engineering in english is annoying, they try to use lbs as both a force and mass measurement. When you need subscripts for your units you have issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nginear Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 I agree ponderingturtle, nginearing in english has its issues (especailly the pound) I had to deal with both imperial and metric in school. My problem, like so many have expressed, is that I was raised with imperial, so I can't very easily visualize metric. I can convert to get imperial so i have an idea of size, but it doesn't come readily to mind without that. And, like others, I remember when the US was going to convert to metric as well. Guess I just dated myself a little there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CessnaPilotBarry Posted February 15, 2015 Report Share Posted February 15, 2015 Yup. I know know folks who have designed, built, and commanded US submarines... I'm in Connecticut... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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