Why is imperial measurement so much more comfortable?
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m metric through and through – I laughed when I watched Michael Alm have to look up what the decimal fraction of an inch he had calculated would be in 32nds. However, when I am making something, scaling something or designing something (occasionally) I seem to find I return to imperial units. – 25mm here or 300mm there – basically an inch and a foot.
I was never taught them at school except to show how hard it used to be in the old days, but my parents were both feet people, and of course a great many people today consider their height in feet and inches.
So to the point for consideration is, is there something inherently human or beautiful about an inch, is it that my parents used them, or is it that so many things around when I was younger were made in inch units, or does something else make imperial units ‘feel right’, if so, what?
Replies
Your mental pathways have become accustomed to certain sensory input patterns.
Nice, John. Good to know there's still some trekkies out there. :)
I find it odd that certain things are metric, and others are not. Back in the 1970s, during fuel shortages, most gas stations sold gasoline by the liter, rather than gallon. But before long they switched back to gallons.
At the same time, alcohol switched to metric. Liters, 500ml, and 375ml replaced quarts, pints, and half pints. Wine is 750ml or 1.5 l. All are now metric, and have been for decades.
But beer is still ounces. It's just odd. Whenever I encounter someone who seems comfortable with metric liquid measurements, I wonder if they are heavy drinkers.
Comfort and convenience generally rule when making decisions about seemingly utilitarian things. We are comfortable with what we’ve grown up with, grown used to, and know to be accepted by others in our social circles, and, of course, comfort also comes from experience, knowing that the tool/device/method produces, routinely, a desired or acceptable result. Feet & inches get the job done. Does the possibility exist for the so-called metric units to be more user-friendly, less prone to error in calculation and measurement, etc.? The answer certainly seems to be ‘yes’, but as every manager knows, change in systems comes with costs attached. Thus, older, slightly more cumbersome but serviceable methods persist.
But there’s a secondary cause, as well. When we look at the world around us, we have expectations about what we should see. If the tires on a vehicle are “too big”, we notice, and often dislike what we see, with little thought about why. In ordering a cup of coffee, we don’t expect to be presented with a shot glass or a tankard, but something more or less around 8 ounces in size (although, interestingly, it can and does vary within some more or less acceptable range).
Once we get used to, and comfortable with, a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese, it takes work to switch our informal allegiance to a Hundred-Grammer, or a Tenth-Kilo, or whatever.
That all said, I love SI units, where pretty much everything is base-10, simply because the math is easier. But my shop is almost entirely in Imperial units nonetheless—because I am so used to it, and encounters with 9/16” nuts and quarter-inch rabbets and 16-inch centers and the like all seem so natural, and comfortable. Whereas 14 (or 15) mm nuts, 5 (or 6) mm rabbets, and 40 cm centers would no doubt be just as effective, useful, and easy to work with. Perhaps easier. Probably easier. No doubt easier. If I could just get acceptably comfortable with it, and if those in my social circle would be more generally willing to accept the switch.
This last is, for many of us, no small detail. We all know people who grumble, “Why couldn’t they just make it a half-inch instead of 12 or 13 mm?”, or “Everyone knows what an ounce of fluid looks like, more or less. But they want me to add 25 cc. And what’s the difference between a cc and a milliliter?” Of course, there’s also the complaint many of us share—“Why do I need two sets of wrenches, sockets, and so forth?”
Finally, we shouldn’t forget that there’s always gonna be someone complaining, “We made the entire Industrial Revolution using inches and feet, by God, it should be good enough to remove the lug nuts on this frickin’ wheel!”
Like Clark, I am comfortable with both systems, being involved in science all my life. I use imperial measurements in the shop, but often find myself grabbing the dial caliper for precise measurements (yeah, I'm that anal sometimes). Having played around in the machine shop while building muzzle loading rifles in the 80's, I have all the decimal conversion committed to memory (strange that I can remember numbers forever, even credit card numbers from 10 years ago, but forget a person's name in 2 minutes). Switching to metric is not a problem, as I am accustomed to using it for specific tasks, such as setting the sharpening guide. Its all in what you become accustomed to.
It's way more natural to use a cup of liquid as the base of a recipe than deciliters. That is the beauty of the imperial system is that because they were evolved and not specified they are naturally easier for us to relate to. In other words for the uses they were originally designed they are more usable.
Oh! I do agree with the above. It is all mental. I have tried very hard to convert to metric. I really love metric measure. It is so much easier. But my 80 year old brain just won't get comfortable thinking in those terms. If I want to make a cabinet "this" big, I can tell you by looking about how much that is in feet and inches, but I can't visualize it in metric measure.
After much looking however, I did find a great compromise; a tape measure and small steel rules that read in feet, inches, 1/10, and 1/50 inches. Finally, the old comfortable familiar feet and inches without the fractions. Love it! I understand that machinists have used this for many years.
Should anyone decide to give it a try, be aware that these are a bit hard to find. When doing a web search, the results will frequently be either metric or engineering scales which are feet and tenths of feet (not inches). Tapes showing both tenths of inches and fractional inches are a little easier to find. Precision Engineering Co. (PEC) has steel rules with inches and tenths of inches. I have found two tapes:
https://www.amazon.com/Decimal-Measure-Drawings-hundredths-magnetic/dp/B0859JR8KC/ref=pd_sbs_469_3/134-5597137-4092704?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0859JR8KC&pd_rd_r=43bf569a-4e69-4d7b-9278-5b933a4b62cd&pd_rd_w=6axwk&pd_rd_wg=IiCaN&pf_rd_p=cc0adad9-73a2-470d-acda-37a71f8758ba&pf_rd_r=X68KV9EDJ2THSV8BT5R6&psc=1&refRID=X68KV9EDJ2THSV8BT5R6
and
https://www.amazon.com/Lufkin-P2212X-Return-Engineers-12-Feet/dp/B009SKGBR4
I can remember a gas station that switched their pumps to metric using liters. Wait for it......then they offered a cash discount of 5 cents per gallon. The poor guy had to get a calculator to convert each transaction.
5 cents? trying to get my head around this. Ok, got it. 14 farthings.
I may not be remembering correctly, but the switch to liters happened because gas pumps, which were mechanical and not digital, could only go as high as 99.9 cents per gallon. There were no additional digits on the meter..
Prices rose so fast, and passed the dollar mark, that they had to change the price to 25 cents and up per liter, until they got new pumps.
I recall back in the mid 1970's the US Government attempted to switch from imperial to metric and most Americans pushed back so it failed to take hold (biggest issue was changing speed limit signs - too costly and no one driving understood). My years studying engineering (including physics and chemistry) at the University used 100% SI units.
Fast forward to today: my job as an engineer is all SI units, but my recipes in the kitchen use imperial measurements and 90% of the tools in my shop are imperial sized. It's not that I don't want to use SI units (they make more 'sense' to me) but, until recipes on line, magazines, and cook books are in SI units, my oven gets set in Centigrade (vs. Fahrenheit), and I replace all my drill bits, saw blades, wrenches, and what not, and the whole woodworking community stops working in the 3/4, 4/4, 6/4 and 8/4 measurements, I'm stuck in the "imperial world". Maybe the Government could institute a mandatory 'buy-back' of my cookbooks, oven, wood supply, and all my tools so I can "convert" ;-)
I think what we’re seeing is the overwhelming factor is, in a word, momentum. There’s a lot of mass moving in a particular direction for most of us, and the advantages that would come with change thereof don’t seem to be enough to cause the masses to come together to alter the vector quantity, especially since the velocity of the modern world never seems to slacken. So, when I die, they’re still gonna bury me six feet under, not 1.83 meters.
I have both and use both. Converting is silly when you can just pick up the other ruler. Why remember what a "heavy" half inch looks like when 13mm is on the other side of the pocket rule? Conversly what do you do when the 'ol calculator tells you something is 1.4 inches? Both scales are just standardized tic marks on a story stick.
Ah ha! Exactly so. My own units of measurement are determined in such a fashion: "This bit needs to be as long as that bit plus this much". It works with widths too; and heights!
I also do sneakin' up, which involves measuring this bit against that then cutting it too long by a millimetre so I can shave off teeny bits until it's just right. The ruler often inserts it's parallax error if I squint at it with the wrong eye, resulting in a part too short by 0.2mm or even 1/64". Sticking a thin shaving on never seems to correct matters in a satisfactory way.
We humans are queer beasts and love to interpose various intermediaries between our sense organs and reality. Inevitably there is a Chinese Whisper between these intermediaries so that "this long" becomes something longer. Or worse: something shorter! A lot of rulers do mumble.
On the other hand, I enjoy using an old fashioned vernier, in which eyeing the metric scale is so much easier than eyeing fractions of fractions of an inch.
Can anyone over age 23 actually discern 1/64" when reading their ruler? If I try, my eyebrows ache.
Lataxe
Many years ago, I was lucky enough to see Tage Frid do many demonstrations. He was a great woodworker, but funny as heck, and very entertaining.
Someone asked him about how fine a measurement had to be, and he pointed to the ruler and "half of one of those funny little lines." They asked if he meant 1/64, and he said "I don't know what that is."
Up until the late 1950s, all the big tool makers made combination squares intended for carpenters, not machinists. Some had 1/8 and 1/16 on both sides, and a couple of others had 1/8 and 1/16 on one side, and 1/16 and 1/32 on the other. No need for 64ths at all.
I really like having 8ths and 16ths on both sides. If I need anything finer, I can eyeball halfway between the funny little lines.
I'm 60. I can't "read 64ths" but I can definitely see the space between 32nds. I think the limit of what the eye can usefully work with on the ruler is somewhere between a 32nd and a 64th. Beyond that we've got calipers and fingertips.
In thinking about any kind of "natural" basis for the foot, the inch, etc., I think you have to consider the aspect that they are *fractional* systems. You can work with almost any kind of arbitrary unit, but when it comes to breaking it down the idea of a half, a half of a half, and so on, is an idea even the most dense, ignorant, uneducated apprentice can relate to. The inch is particularly useful in thinking fractionally, especially when you get down to small units like 16ths and 32nds. I don't know why people think arithmetic errors are any less likely working metric compared to imperial. Arithmetic errors are arithmetic errors -- people make them no matter what measuring unit system they are using.
In my experience, many people find it easier to operate with whole numbers and decimals than fractions. That can certainly reduce calculation errors.
I believe you're probably correct, but only in a world where people have calculators.
With no disrespect intended, I suspect you do know why some of us think arithmetical errors are more common working with Imperial measurements (fractions abound!) as opposed to SI (which are, of course, inherently decimal in nature). Think back to when you were learning to add and subtract fractions and decimals. With the latter, one could just stack ‘em and make sure the decimal points lined up, and go to it. When it comes to fractions, however, adding 8 1/2 + 2 3/8 + 5 1/4 is still enough to make some adults cry. And we’re only talking simple adding and subtraction.
As a more concrete example, we see that, historically, as the Industrial Revolution was gaining steam, there was a fairly rigorous movement to standardize and simplify units of measure. The SI is the current evolutionary result, and the Imperial system hangs on, most generally, only in places where it can’t do too much harm. A specific example: though the apothecaries’ system of weights and measures was used for centuries to specify drugs and pharmaceuticals, the use of ounces, pounds, grains, drops, scruples, and the like for pharmaceutical dosing is very highly frowned upon now, and outright illegal in many places, simply because the system was more error-prone. And, indeed, too often, for far too long, not well standardized. A pound was seldom a pound the world ‘round, and worse.
As for how and when one employs units of measure, well, that’s always been open to idiosyncrasy and invention. Comparative measure as a standard has been a thing since Aristotle wanted his bookcase to be the same height on each end and everyone wanted their shirts to have sleeves of equal length. But when it comes time to build something over there the same size as something over here, and here and there are separated by great distance or inconvenience, reliable units become necessary. Somewhere in there, governments found it convenient and useful to start standardizing units of measure as well, too, in order to tax, to settle land disputes, to encourage trade, and more. But one guy banging together a built-in entertainment center can make it this long, that high, etc. without problem—as long as the TV and the Roku both fit where they need to. And since the homeowner hasn’t picked up the TV from Best Buy, we’re gonna need some meaningful numbers describing its dimensions. And a tape measure.
I'm retired from a decades-long statistical career, working with numbers every day. Working with measurement and measurement error every day. I've got a pretty strong feel for math error, where it comes from and its potential effects. You make some interesting points. Perhaps a little more historicism is appropriate though. Try and imagine a time when your apprentice couldn't do arithmetic. Try and imagine a time when *you* couldn't do arithmetic. In that case, fractions are a natural means of coping with quantification. It is, quite literally, where we came from. I am not trying to make any case for the superiority of any measurement system. I am merely addressing the OP's original question, which was to enquire whether there is a natural basis or justification for a non-decimal system. I believe the answer is obvious.
This is how things evolved. Having a standardized "yardstick", if you will is only about 300 years old. Measurement were not standardized.
But fractions are imprinted in our brains. If you have three small children and cut a piece of cake into three portions, they absolutely know if one is bigger or smaller than the others. Cutting a bord in half is easy. The labels, inches, feet, meters, came later.
I’ve enjoyed reading this thread. Thank you all. I can add a few ideas:
1) I read somewhere that imperial measurements made more sense to them for furniture design because they were based on the human body. A foot. An inch. A stool can be two feet to be comfortable. Other similar meausures were mentioned. I think it was either Christopher Schwarz or Jim Tolpin. I’ll never find the source, but was an interesting reasoning.
2) In my country (Colombia) we mix SI and imperial in crazy manners, due mostly to the American commercial influence. Gas is gallons, piping is inches, wrenches and nuts are inches. Beverages are milliliters and liters. But distances in our minds are metric (and some old Spanish, like “cuadra”). Feet and inches are not in our immediate experience. It’s all habit. And the culture that reinforces the habit.
3)As a woodworker, my chisels, drill-bits, saws, etc. are imperial, and designing is a pain. “So, how wide a mortise for this 4cm table leg...,” is a common question in my mind (3/8” works).
4) I read many books and learn woodworking from Americans who use imperial measurements, such as Fine Woodworking Magazine. I follow plans in inches. Need to be fluent in both systems, and minimize conversions per-project.
Many years ago, NASA and the ESA (European Space Agency) collaborated on a Mars lander project. After it burned up in descent, the world’s smartest discovered a metric/imperial conversion error. Now, the simpleton in me finds it easy tossing miscut casework in the fireplace and starting over..
In Canada we had the infamous "Gimli Glider" incident shortly after our conversion to metric. This was the near-crash of a passenger jet which had been under-fueled due to a metric conversion error. The measurement goof-up was directly responsible for the close call event.
I would like a combo square using Roman numerals.
I am sure that reading the XXXIIs would be considerably easier than the LXIVs!
When you refer to Imperial measurements, you really must specify which empire.
Touche!!
Sodding Sumerians used base 60. That would be sweet for never having to use a decimal. We are still stuck with this for degrees because to all practical intents and purposes 360 degrees is enough. It makes far more mathematical sense to use radians, but that requires fractional measurements all the time.
Very interesting responses - thanks all.
When it comes down to it, imperial measurements were a sensible way to do things when precision was limited and it was helpful to have a base with lots of factors, so division into useful parts was simple.
As we entered the Industrial Revolution of course, we needed greater precision and there was no reason to abandon the inch because most measurements that needed greater precision were on objects somewhat smaller than an inch, or of course to which an inch or eight could be added when needed. There really was no need to scale things as there was no readily available scaling tool save for those used by people who were trained to use them so adding 8 and 565 1000ths was not a problem.
Even then though, there was probably an ingrained aesthetic as humans like round numbers and I am sure many things were initially built to the scale of human aesthetic comfort which included the inch.
I suspect that this comfort aesthetic has continued, though I can find no more than anecdotal evidence of it's relevance.
In a society where individualism has run rampant - or the idea of it has - it's surprising that the units and system of measurement endowed on 'em, so long ago, by King George's agents is still favoured. You'd think that every fellow in the US would have his own system of measurement, based on some personal part he likes most about hisself, such as the breadth of his flared nostril or the length of his trigger finger.
But no - the measurement system of The British Empire still prevails! Perhaps there is a secret longing to be governed by a strong albeit remote power, such as Queenie, despite the individualista cries of "me-first and away with those others"? :-)
Anyroadup we in the civilised world, where metric rulers rule, are nevertheless able to recognise the quality of some North America woodworking tools and so buy them, despite the queer fractions of an inch plastered on them; and ill-fitting screw thread standards employed to hold them together.
It is frustrating, though, if you lose a-one of your 1/4-20 grub screws only to find you have to import another from America, cost $1.99 + 2o-times that amount in postage, VAT and customs duty, a wait of several weeks to get it and the high possibility it will remain lost forever in the depths of the USPS.
Sometimes I seek the German equivalent. But since Brexit they won't sell stuff to us 'cos the export process is just too hard now and uses 5o reams of foolscap per item to satisfy the customs officers. .
Lataxe
Some guy sells tape measures and stuff based on a measurement system based on his own thumb, or something like that. I forget the name. But there been advertised in woodworking magazines.
Anyone remember the name?
The ‘Bob Rule’ comes to mind.
Yes! Bobsrule. 24 Bob's to an inch. I just looked and yhe website is gone. There were some threads on the forum here back in the day. I guess Bob's rules are collectors items now.
It doesn't take much historical study of western measurement systems before you encounter Vitruvius and his idea of human-centred measurement and proportionality. His whole system of architecture is based on it and Roman buildings all over the empire were built using it. It was handed down for centuries after that. It shows up in the work of da Vinci, of Stradivarius. Human-centred measurement and proportionality is fundamental and seminal! He used Greek feet, I believe. But the base unit is arbitrary and irrelevant -- the important matter is the proportion of one element to another. And, in thinking proportionally, he thought in fractions. He taught in fractions. The proportions of Stradivari's beautiful instruments are conceived in terms of simple fractions. Before all of them, Pythagoras' work on harmonics was also conceived of and expressed completely in terms of fractions. Rational numbers, one related to another. You can do a lot that way. I'll bet a great many of the woodworkers reading this -- even the metric militants -- will mix varnishes and epoxies and so forth as "four parts this, two parts that, and one part of the other thing." This fractional way of thinking is everywhere in human quantitative thought. Personally, I think it comes well before any notion of the utility of a system based on a standard number such as 10.
I agree. Fractions are part of the human OS. We can see halves. We can see if something is centered or not centered. We might not have a bionic eye that reads in 64ths of an inch. But dump out a set of 64 drill bits, from 1/64 to an inch, and a child van arrange them in order from smallest to largest.
Some things are just hardwired, and fractions are part of that.
its a lot easier to see one eighth than three mm on my ruler, to I went back to imperial for purely practical reasons and only for woodwork. Pete
Agree - as my eyes have got less good close-up it's convert to inches or get glasses...
For having worked for some time in a vertically integrated plant producing millions of units per year each made up of hundreds of mechanical components all made in house and using solely imperial units, there is no lack of accuracy using the imperial system as the base unit becomes the 1/1000th and the system become decimal based just like it’s European counterpart. Ironically, for this discussion, we built meters !
Funny!
Wonderful discussion about measurements and standards.
The dichotomy in the United States is while we cling to the Imperial system for measurement, our monetary units are a decimal system. That being said, should we abandon our current dollar base for the Pound Sterling system. It give me a headache just trying to imagine it.
Are you shilling for a new monetary system?
:-)
Actually, no. We do have a half-dollar and a quarter-dollar. So why not add an eighth-dollar and a sixteenth-dollar. ;-)
Ugh. I see what you did there.
Seeing someone post "a heavy half inch" I am often guilty of that in the past but as I improve I am thinking more in 32nd or 64th. I can remember years ago being onsite of a home being built and the guy on the roof was shouting to the cut man "42 and 3 big lines and one short one". There was little chance that baby was going to be square.
It's the ruler. Inches have long lines for full inches, shorter ones for halfs, even shorter ones for quarters, eighths and so on. The metric ruler just isn't as friendly for trades work.
Imperial feels more comfortable because the terms are used in everyday speech. Imagine a single day where you don’t use the words “half” or “quarter”. Those terms are meaningless in the metric system.
Never thought of that. In truth the post was inspired by fixing battens to a roller blind to try to finagle it to work for a sloping roof window.
I worked out the distance between battens that would be 'about right' to the eye, with a view to halving (sic) that if it turned out to be too much. When I measured the 'right' looking distance, it was 12 inches almost exactly , and it put me in mind of the many other design choices I have made that look 'right' in inches.
I should use the Forum much more often – what a great discussion! A thought on imperial measurement: might it be that in private, denizens of USA woodshops harbo(u)r a secret desire to remain rooted in those halcyon pre-revolutionary times? Having been (almost) a scion of the British Empire (I missed it by just a few years) and thus having been taught in Imperial units as a lad, it may be worth noting that (1) in those far-off post-imperial times I achieved at best fractional success in school maths exams and (2) only by virtue of my migration to the European continent some decades ago and my integration into the metric system born of another, previous revolution, did I finally comprehend the basics of how to add 1 and a bit plus 1 less a bit and still make 2. Me, I would definitely plump for the decimal system, and to the imperialist duodecimal doubters I say just this: a half is a half is a half, whatever the metric. But is not the outturn our enjoyment and the measure of our skills?
:-) I am a little younger and born well after metrication so was only taught the imperial system as a means to demonstrate how much better metric was - seriously - we spent one day at school trying to do math in base 12 and add up in old money units just to show us how hard our teachers had it, how much easier we had it and to stop moaning about doing trigonometry...
Ron,
You may have hit on one of the factors inducing them Yanks into their love of imperial - they like things to be harder than they need be, as this provides opportunities to demonstrate their true grit!
How else to explain not only the mental juggling (and eye-squinting) with 64ths of a hinch but also the refusal to employ an integrated planer and thicknesser; or a tablesaw with a sliding carriage and means to prevent finger loss or a "smack upside the head" from a plank? They like it tough and rough, as they strut their stuff.
In the magazine, there is further evidence to support this theory, in the form of dangerous looking macho men found in the adverts, showing real-serious expressions and postures not that different from that of a gunslinger about to outdraw you in the bar & grill you shouldn't have entered (but it looked "authentic"). They may be gripping a drill or a router but their fingers are seeking a trigger. Oh yes they are!
Anyroadup, we older Blighters and others sharing elements of the US language and culture (often forced into our eyes by the mass media and it's high load of Yank TV & filums) do recall the imperials from our long-ago schooldays, when failure to do a sum involving fractions resulting in the right answer often resulted in one of those slaps to the head from the "teacher" (in reality, a sadist just out of the post WWII forces who failed to change his personal modes of behaviour from killer-Tommy to civilised-fellow-once-more).
But I digress.
It was that Napoleon who insisted on the metric. Perhaps that's another reason the Yanks won't adopt it? That particular Frenchman was "a loser" after all. Just ask Wellington and the Prussians.
****
Sometimes I employ the inch just for old times sake. Never when it matters, though. :-)
Lataxe
Well, I'm a 60 year old Canadian. A close neighbour to the USA, with our nose pressed 100% of the time to the glass, but also a fairly close relative of the UK with many strong live roots still. A Canadian stands in between Americans and Brits in some fashion. I also lived through Pierre Trudeau's metrification of Canada back in the late 70's. Until early adulthood, I lived a thoroughly imperial units life and since then metric units have been everywhere. Children have been raised with them.
What you find in Canada, in this sort of jumbled and evolved and hybridized environment, is that people are diverse. They speak the measurement dialect of their choice and it's no big deal to anyone anywhere. I use Celsius temperatures for anything below water freezing and Fahrenheit for anything above. I use miles or kilometers for long journeys, doesn't matter, but for short distances as in hiking or swimming I'm all about yards and miles.
One little secret in all that? The base units hardly matter a damn fig. If it's your business interest to go one way or the other then you do it. In many ways the discussion about metric versus imperial amounts to the same thing as arguing over which word for "house" is better, the English or the French.
There is very, very little inherently *superior* to either imperial or metric measurement. If you throw out metric's cardinal superiority -- standardization across all conceivable boundaries -- then it is a really trivial argument.
Fascinating.
Here's a post rom today pertinent to this discussion.
https://blog.lostartpress.com/2021/02/04/satin-black-rules-ive-failed-you/
I feel like the imperial system usually guards me against over-fixating on tolerances. Working to 1/32” or 1/64”seems more manageable than to 1/100” when relying on graduated rules. The jump from 1/10” to 1/100” can sometimes feel like a shift from too loose to too tight tolerances (or else relegate you to eye-balling the liminal space between the tick marks. In this sense, at least, the imperial system feels more ?complete?/?final? than metric.
That said, I rely on the metric system for initial machine setup and calibration on the basis of a principle gleaned from The Patriot (film): “aim small, miss small.” If I can adjust my machines to within .001,” I feel comfortable relying on them for squareness, flatness, etc. rather than wondering whether its the s the tool, the user, or the stock that keeps me from getting the final dimensions. The metric system lets me remove one of those alternatives, which is a big help.
Tapeulator app makes the whole thing moot.
i am looking for an easy to read ruler. maybe one hand long. i can afford to spend up to 80 bits.
It feels like this thread has been running for dog years.
https://www.pedigree.com/dog-care/dog-age-calculator
I purchased a metric 1 meter steel rule when I started a large kitchen cabinet project. I think mine was a Shinawa.
I have to say I'll never go back.
Part of it was because the Blum system is native MM, but after using this for a year I'm, sold!
I end up using both.
To an extent I suspect it's all the FWW content I listen to. I have as instinctive a feel for a 'fat 32nd' as I have for a 'shade under a mm'
It is of course added to because my blades are 1/8 inch kerf.
My thickness sander is 1/16 inch per turn.
All my plans are in metric, unless bought from the USA, but I still make things in inch units, even if I call it 25mm!
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