Metric vs Imperial: Who Would Win ?

[Peter Neill]

I have the opposite problem to the OP, both of my boring heads take 1/2" shanks but the majority of insert boring bars over here are 12mm or 16mm.
As to Imperial/Metric, like most Brits I happily work in both and even mix them - like knowing I've got another 0.002" to turn off over a 100mm length....

But Boris on this forum summed this up years ago, and I'll quote him here

“Seeing as I live and have learned in Britain, I'll give you the run down of how a modern British engineering type person thinks:

From 0 to 0.001" I use microns
From 0.025mm to 0.1mm I use imperial
From 0.04" to 1" I use metric
and anything above 25.4mm I use imperial”

 

[FredC]

Metric gears are upside-down and backwards, it's ghastly. The thread system is not too lovely, either. I don't care that much about the units, hell, why not choose 1 gazillionth the distance from the north pole to god's nose ? But in practice, I end up doing all gear stuff in DP then translating back, cuz, you know, DP makes sense.

Never made a gear so I guess I am not a real machinist. A fellow PM member here made some metric transposing gears for my HLV-H and he said the calculations were easy even though Hardinge used a strange gear profile. Must not have been metric. Funny that I thought Germany was an early adopter of Metric and the screws that hold the receiver in a Mauser are 1/4-22. In making copies I thought they had to be metric and came up with 1.15 pitch. 22 TPI would have been so much easier!

 

[toolsteel]

it was fairly cold here this morning.....
264.261° K.....

 

[EmGo]

Never made a gear so I guess I am not a real machinist.

Cool ! I never made any brownie cams so I'm not a machinist either. Good thing, we wouldn't want to be one of those lowlifes

 

[FredC]

Cool ! I never made any brownie cams s I'm not a machinist either. Good thing, we wouldn't want to be one of those lowlifes

SHHH! Camscam might be listening! Sure a lot of people on this forum that have done amazing things I have never dreamed of.

 

[camscan]

SHHH! Camscam might be listening! Sure a lot of people on this forum that have done amazing things I have never dreamed of.

Yup, he's right here.

 

[TeachMePlease]

Cool ! I never made any brownie cams so I'm not a machinist either. Good thing, we wouldn't want to be one of those lowlifes

Toolmaker or bust!

I wanna be like OH TEE ARE ELLL TEEE!!!! (otrlt)

 

[Cyclotronguy]

Yeah, well I've cut gears and laid out and cut cams for brownie's and still have the layout tools for same..... and I'm not so sure I'm a real machinist either!

 

[ChipSplitter]

Toolmaker or bust!

I wanna be like OH TEE ARE ELLL TEEE!!!! (otrlt)

Ya gotta use the FFS system if you want to be a gen-u-wine toooooolmaker..............(see post #3)

Urban Dictionary: FFS

 

[AJ H]

Purposely using metric is akin to pissing on the flag, ya commie fuck

 

[Oldwrench]

This is just as much fun now as it was a few years ago.

For those too young to know, the word "Imperialist" was for decades the overwhelming favorite insult employed in Soviet propaganda. Yes, the British Empire was legitinately and unashamedly an empire, but the US separated from that empire via war (because, among other things, we denied—and still do—the divine right of kings). After we inherited, post WW2, the political mantle formerly worn by Britain, the accusation that we maintained a similar colonial empire for exploitation was irresistible, whence the term. Given that the Soviet Union was a shit-ton more imperialistic than we ever were, and is long gone, it may seem a bit silly to even care about the lexicon the Commies used. But it remains an insult in that particular context. The question is, is that context obsolete? I would say not; it's alive and well and the occasional reminder does no harm.

For those already frothing, my post had NOTHING to do with whether inch is preferable to mm. I design in both routinely and don't really care. I just don't like the casual use of "Imperial" when referring to the (American) Inch system. It was fine when it was the British standard, but since 1776 we've not belonged to an empire.

 

[FredC]

Not sure if the use of the term Imperial has to be an us against the Soviets thing. My 25th edition of Machinery's Handbook refers to British imperial yard #11 and meter stick #27. Our inherited measurements came from the British empire and not just the American inch. I have wondered why the French did not apply the decimal system to time also. 86,400 seconds in a day, WHY?
Every year I have to report my irrigation usage to the water district. 220 gallons a minute times well run time to get millions of gallons of water. OOH the math makes my head hurt, not really. Glad I do not have to convert it to liters that would take at least another 30 secs each year. :-)

 

[Mud]

my post had NOTHING to do with whether inch is preferable to mm. I design in both routinely and don't really care. I just don't like the casual use of "Imperial" when referring to the (American) Inch system. It was fine when it was the British standard, but since 1776 we've not belonged to an empire.

What do you call it? Inch seems insufficient because not all measurements are in inches. I've seen documents call it "standard" as in "Metric or Standard". I've used Imperial because it dates back to that period and beyond, but I see your point.

PS - Hating inches is the punishment for being unable to work in both systems. I find metric threads clumsy and insufficient in small sizes. Yes it's easier, but same as one size fits all hats are easier to pick out than your correct hat size, that doesn't make them better in any practical useful way, just easier. And gears are a mess. Same reason Radians are less popular than degrees, even though radians is metric.

 

[thermite]

Same reason Radians are less popular than degrees, even though radians is metric.

Radians, circular mils, and degrees are "agnostic". Relative to whichever base is handy. Don't inherently care if one system or the other has adopted or "included" them.

As to "less popular"? More rounds of artillery fire have been aimed with radians than just the odd angry shot.

Multiple millions of rounds. Multiple millions of tons of ordnance on-target... or near-as-dammit. "Battery. One round. Will adjust!"

Or not. 52d Arty. BDE NYADS, motto was simpler:

"Fire for effect".

MIM-14B with a 12 foot CPE 90 miles out and a 20 KT W31 warshot?

Didn't actually need corrections!

 

[crazygoat]

Absolutely not! They can be converted, by an ingenious process that I have developed. For only $1 apiece - preferably in Bitcoin - I can convert them right over the Internet. Happy to help.

Well I guess i will just have to keep converting them in my head because i don't have any imaginary money and very little real money!

 

[thermite]

Well I guess i will just have to keep converting them in my head because i don't have any imaginary money and very little real money!

The stuff sorta "wears out". No longevity to it.

I mean, say you have a specific sum of money?

Now yah figure: "I can by this <wotever>".

By the tme you've bought several <wotevers>?

The money is somehow diminished back to nuthin'. Not a lick of DURABILITY to it!

Go figure we'd be in deep s**t if spindle bearings or machine-tool motors worked to such short-lives that way!

 

[CarbideBob]

Metric or inch again.....
Life would be so much easier if all you around the planet just used the system I started in.
Yea inches, yards and miles..
This is what I learned as young, obviously it is far superior for that reason alone.
Now we have the Germans, French, Brits, Japanese, Canadians, China and all sorts of others trying to upset the apple cart. Do they think they own the world of manufacturing?

Need proof, which is stiffer, do the math. A 12mm boring bar or a 1/2 inch bar? Yea win team USA.

Bob
(those not knowing me here and metric fans please take this post with a grain of salt as the big grin may not come though in print)

 

[SIP6A]

I use the Furlong/Fortnight/Stone system. (FFS)

I suspect other than myself your the only person here that knows the conversion factor to go from Furlong Per Fortnight to Miles Per Hour

 

[EmGo]

I suspect other than myself your the only person here that knows the conversion factor to go from Furlong Per Fortnight to Miles Per Hour

Can you translate that into knots ?

 

[SIP6A]

Can you translate that into knots ?

You no doubt could but would take better math skills than I have