A mini rant about the metric system--from Canada

I know I've been busy for awhile and haven't been posting, but I couldn't pass this one up. I've got 60 sixth graders and am currently trying to teach them to add, subtract, and convert measurements within the "customary" system and the metric system as well. You know what funny thing of it all is? The kids are learning and understanding the metric system easier than the "customary" system. Counting to 10 is the key.

My USAF Hazmat training taught me that we had to convert from standard to metric to ship internationally - even if it wasn't going internationally. 2.2 pounds (roughly) equals 1 kilogram, and 2.54 centimeters equals 1 inch - again, roughly.

Feel my pain, or at least sympathize with it.

That stuff is just too funny. I have flashbacks on my kids, and they know the customary/standard measurements.

Should be something along that line.

 

i always use the metric side of the tape its easier to get exact measurement instead of 1/2 inch and a little bit

 

"I can't make heads nor tails of these metric booby-traps"--Mr Burns on the Simpsons.

Actually, as a paramedic, I have to make drug and weight calculations-- and in medicine, the metric system is the ONLY way to go, lots more simple!

 

In my Land surveying career, we used a bastard "metric style' system, where feet were divided into tenths and hundreths of a foot. This worked great and was much easier to use. It was much easier to lay out somthing as 56.27' rather than 56'-3 1/4".

 

The one and only place I can see where Metric would truly be more easy for us American car guys is drill bits. As it is now, to tap a hole the proper size, we have fractional, letter and number drill bits. Yes, these all have a decimal equivelant, yet I can't help but think in metric, they'd all just be part of the same big set.

I'm 37, and remember being taught in elementary school that it'd all be metric by now...I also very clearly remember being taught that we'd be living in a great ice age by now as well.

I had a Dakota a few years back that had fractional fasteners at one end of the rear shocks, and metrics at the other end. What a joke.

I consider this debate about the same as Europeans whining about Americans only speaking one language, and not being fluent in two or more like most europeans are. Tell you what there, Frenchy; when I need another language to talk to the people next door in Alabama, I'll learn another one. And when I need to learn a third to talk to the people in Florida, I'll learn a third. And when a dinky little state like Rhode Island decides it's a country unto itself and should have its own language, well, if I travel and do business there, I'll learn Rhodie. But we don't. Why? Because we're the US: We're the biggest, the wealthiest, the best organized, the free-est, and your way is not the way we do it. If it was, there'd be a dozen languages from coast to coast, and we'd all still be burning whale oil to see at night, and write letters to communicate with people the next town over.

So congrats--you have a different measurement system then us, and a different "world view" than us. How's that workin' out for ya?
-Brad

 

I was buying 5/8th plywood for something a couple of years ago.
Kents Building Supplies had it on sale.
Grabbed a sheet to put it on the carrier and it felt kinda...weird. Measured it with my tape...1/2 inch!
Asked the wood guy what was up...wrong stack maybe?

"Nope...That IS 5/8 plywood...but its METRIC."

Huh???.....Ok genius...
"Soooooo...what METRIC sheet works out to 5/8" then???

Being ever helpful he said "3/4 inch...but I'm sorry Sir...only 5/8ths is ON SALE!"

I was too flabbergasted to argue...so I just bought the 3/4" METRIC, which was still a great price.
There was no arguing with his logic...and he was no kid either!
Must have been in his 30's!!!!
Blew me away...

 

The airliner without fuel was a good story....they coasted in on an abandoned airstrip. Actually not totally abandoned at that time. There was a big picnic going on, and the people had no notice of the plane, and of course no screaming engines. Luck prevailed, someone saw it, and they all scattered. The pilot really pulled it off.

 

You guys have no idea.......................

I am a glovebox designer for a major DOE facility. Our Gloveboxes are designed in metric units. While the building and all it's interface points are designed and built to imperial units.

 

Maybe we do...

Whenever I buy a Aftermarket part ( like a E-Brake handle assembly, a dust cover for a Shifter, or something like that) the pre-drilled holes are at some weird inbetween size.
OK...
The thing was problably not made in the States, so I grab my Metric Tape Measure.

And thats a weird inbetween size as well....

Every single one of those that gets sold has to get its holes drilled specially for that piece.

So if they sell 5000 of those units the time wasted ( by us ) is multiplied by 5000 as well.

I honestly think there is no excuse for that.

 

As a past mechanical designer I loved the metric system. Most drawing programs dimension for either. I do have a nice paper weight from a machinist reading a drawing wrong.

Question. When did GM start putting the 13mm nut on the transmission shaft for the shifter? and how many of you tried putting on a 1/2" nut before being told differently?

 

Back inthe 70's when we first started useing metric my uncle was about 70 years old and he hated it he said (thats the reason we fought that war was so we wouldn't have to put up with this shit!)

 

My Irish colleagues still weigh things in stone. They quickly caught on that we have no idea what a stone is. We quickly caught on that they lay out their facilities in meters but are adept at 'customary' measures from daily life. They would bristle at the mention of 'imperial' units.

No big deal but I still don't know what a stone is.

Now what's that rods/hoghead conversion factor?

<edit>
It appears that 1mpg = 21600 rods/hogshead is the generally accepted conversion factor.
</edit>

 

Actually, that airstrip was being used as a dragstrip.........I believe it still is. .....Gimli, Manitoba

 

10mm instead of 3/8"? you mean you didn't notice the nut was blue, which in the late 70s was GM-speak for metric?

what gets me is how the japanese cars use 12mm and 14mm hex on their hardware, the US cars have 13mm and 15mm. Universal metric parts, eh?

 

I believe 1 stone is 20 pounds.

 

You guys actually measure stuff?

I don't measure anything....I use the "Ed Roth Eyeball method."

Otherwise known as..."If it looks right, then it probably is."

 

Is there a metric equivalent of a 44DD ?

 

Here in Australia we have had the metric system for decades ,which is why I never see those hair measurements in movies anymore.

 

10E ...had one yesterday...

 

....and each toe is an inchwide ,so you can get 1/2 a foot at the end ,right?

 

Depends how good the aformentioned movie was.

 

Like most on this board, most of my cars are/have been rather vintage, but I lately found myself in need of a comfortable commuter that I didn't mind racking up milage on. I found a '94 T-Bird with only 28,000 miles on it. This is what passes for a "new" car for me. I climbed under it for the first time a few weeks ago to change the oil for the first time, and there on the tranny pan, in big letters, was the word "Metric." WTF? I called my son-in-law, who is a service/parts manager for a big dealership in the high desert and used to own one of these birds, and he told me I would encounter a mixture of SAE and metric fasteners on the car, as far as he remembered. Now that really helps working on it, doesn't it?

 

Manufacturers have been doing this for decades. Remember Clutch head screws, how about Torx?

 

now thats funny lmfao

 

1 stone is 14 pounds - I weigh about 10 stone 8 lbs, which probably makes me a 148 pound wimp! And I'm 5'-5" tall, not thousands of millimetres

We also have 'hundredweights' which I think are 8stone, or 112lbs. There are 20 hundredweight to a ton (that's an Imperial ton).

Also, I think a US quart is nearly the same as a litre, so you might be more metric than you think!

 

If God wanted us to use the metric system, then why didn't Jesus have 10 disciples...?

 

I'm proud to say that my old Ford is SAE right down to the 14mm spark plugs.

 

I decimeter is 4 inches roughly. Not exactly a foot like measurement.
As I say I know both as I was in school in Canada in the mid 70's. can switch easily between the two standards. Most of the packaging for years had both units on them here so that often helps with the comparisons.

In my work I have 100 meter limits on my cabling which I also know is 328 feet so the conversion is always 3.28, / or * ( 3.2808 to be more accurate)

The mixing is the real problem and even I have to watch for my suppliers not converting prices properly as cable is sold per k/m usually.

It's good to see some one uses decimeters as that was supposed to be the "foot" measurement as we were taught. It just never really caught on in general use here. What bugs me is the use mm on huge building drawings when really the should use cm??? But I just move the decimal point, easy as pie...

 

I honestly believe it is a conspiracy provoked by the tool companies so we would have to buy a complete second set of tools to work on anything...Mac and Snap-on are making a killing on us

 

It's funny to see how long the car companies kept mixing fasteners. I remember taking apart a '79 Buick years ago and it had metric body bolts, but the suspension and driveline were all standard. Maybe that's why I keep buying late Suburbans, they're pretty much all standard bolts (although you need a damn torx for the headlight doors and tail lenses... and on this one, the damn roof marker lights use a mix of 2 completely different bulbs....)

I've never really used metric for anything except where cars had those fasteners on them, even though we learned it in high school and I graduated in 1992.

Well, sometimes the next size down metric could be hammered on a rusty standard bolt and get it loose, they're handy for that.