dwacker Posted February 13, 2015 Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 That is just sloppy work Tom way to far off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dewald Swanepoel Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 When glued up and planed/sanded I don't care whether it is 3/4" or 47/64" or 23/32" thick. This is when I feel sorry for you imperial folk - when progressively smaller numbers have to be indicated as a fraction of 4, a fraction of 64 and a fraction of 32. My head hurts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryMcK Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 This is when I feel sorry for you imperial folk - when progressively smaller numbers have to be indicated as a fraction of 4, a fraction of 64 and a fraction of 32. My head hurts. I use mm most of the time but was fortunate to have been taught both at around the time when my country went over to metric in the early 1970s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim0625 Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 I use mm most of the time but was fortunate to have been taught both at around the time when my country went over to metric in the early 1970s. NOW HERE'S A QUESTION.....Wonder how hard it would be to switch over in my shop - Mentally? See, there's a part of all of we Americans that says "dern Europeans...our fractions are fine....dang Brits....grumble grumble...." so there's something subterranean that makes many of us in the states want to blindly hang on to what we have whether it's better or not. I resisted it in high school (graduated in 1977) but now I see some benefits of 10s. Wonder if some of we old goats could benefit from 10s? Wonder if we could make the mental adjustment to look at a 3/4" board as 19mm? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 Tim, I'm certain tht the changeover would be a snap if suppliers started making things like plywood or S4S lumber in mm dimensions evenly divisible by 5, or even by 2. It would be much simpler to mentally calculate subdivisions of a 20 mm board than a 19 mm board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tpt life Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 I have switched several times for different jobs and global travel. I don't find metric's ten base easier for micro estimation. I find it the same. You still are estimating. By the time you pull out a measuring device, who cares? Math is math. If Imperial suddenly disappeared, I would learn metric more naturally. But, I will not be disappointed if I get to my grave still using inches and gallons Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byrdie Posted February 15, 2015 Report Share Posted February 15, 2015 As far as the original topic goes, when it comes to length or fit, I usually at least have a mental plan and I'll mark up one piece to the plan, set up my machinery to that and cut all matching parts to that set up. When it comes to angle, depth of a dado or a router setting, I have Wixley digital tools that measure to the thousandth and I use them. I might still go with "close enough" on the depth gauge but I do my best to be precise on angles. As far as metric versus imperial - I can understand the practical application of the metric system but still have trouble reading a ruler or tape. Besides the fact that I work in the paper industry and the majority of our measures are imperial, I find a certain degree of elegance in a measuring system where each subsequent measure is half the previous. Just works well with my eye. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dewald Swanepoel Posted February 15, 2015 Report Share Posted February 15, 2015 I suppose I don't understand the intuitiveness of the imperial system because I've never really used it. The two things that have always confused me are how progressive sizes don't look like they're following on each other. For instance, the following are some progressively larger wrench sizes: 5/8, 21/32, 11/16, 3/4, 25/32, 13/16, 7/8... That's 5 different denominators! Maybe people who grew up with this system can look at the number 25/32 and intuitively know that it's just a little bigger than 3/4. I can't. I have to do the math first. I can very easily tell though that 20mm is slightly bigger than 19mm - not even just "slightly", I know exactly how much bigger it is. The other thing is with simple subtraction. For argument's sake, say I have a board of 310mm width. I send it through the jointer and measure it again to find that it is now 305mm wide. So the jointer took off 5mm. This means if I send it through again, it will be 300mm wide, again and it will be 295mm... 290mm... 285mm... etc. Simple repetitive deduction, even if the cut was 10mm or 2mm. In the imperial system I don't even know how this would be written down. Maybe someone can enlighten me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim0625 Posted February 15, 2015 Report Share Posted February 15, 2015 Can't.....you have a point! Wrenches do not typically come in the odd sizes like 25/64 but I know what you're saying. I don't intuitively know 32nds and 64ths either. I have to add up and reduce _ 26/64 is 13/32 or round down - 24/64 is 12/32 is 6/16/ Oh!! that's 3/4... There are times in woodworking, when we get pretty precise. It's easy to know 19 is just a hair smaller than 20 which goes back to my question: For we imperial guys, wonder how hard it would be to switch - mentally that is. I think most of us had the metric system in school and learned it well enough to pass a test - often not much more..... but it's a start. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 15, 2015 Report Share Posted February 15, 2015 I think those wrenches in 1/32" increments are probably an attempt to match a metric size. I've never seen a wrench sized in fractions smaller than 1/16". 25/32" is very close to 20mm. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwacker Posted February 15, 2015 Report Share Posted February 15, 2015 Switching to metric is as simple as just doing doing it. Being accurate is also a simple matter of just being accurate. You don't need loads of expensive measuring devices or metric lumber. One thing I learned years ago was not to measure sawdust. A example of measuring sawdust is a dado. We don't care that a dado is 1/4" deep in 3/4 material. All we care about is that the remaining material is 1/2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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