Accuracy.

[Phil Pascoe]

In common with many my age I can work in either, but cannot estimate in metric to save my soul. The chap over there is about six two and fifteen stone? I haven't the foggiest idea what that would in metric without working out rough conversions.
I worked for years with a chippie who used both. At the same time. What do you want , Ivor? I need a piece 20mm thick, 7 inches wide with a groove down the centre 15mm wide and half an inch deep.

 

[toolsntat]

I worked for years with a chippie who used both. At the same time. What do you want , Ivor? I need a piece 20mm thick, 7 inches wide with a groove down the centre 15mm wide and half an inch deep.

Are you sure I've worked with you ? :wink: :lol:
EDIT ah! Just seen it was me dad Ivor

 

[alexalexander]

Interesting comment on using decimal inches. One of my steel rulers is marked on one side in trad imperial inches in eights, sixteens, 32ths etc, and on the other in 10ths of inches. I've never used the decimal inch scale as it's never corresponded to imperial dimensions in general use - eg drill bits, old plans.

 

[transatlantic]

Interesting comment on using decimal inches. One of my steel rulers is marked on one side in trad imperial inches in eights, sixteens, 32ths etc, and on the other in 10ths of inches. I've never used the decimal inch scale as it's never corresponded to imperial dimensions in general use - eg drill bits, old plans.

Surely having the option of both normal and decimal inches is just asking for trouble.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes. I got rid of a perectly good Rabone 24" rule because it was marked in 1/10ths - I made too many mistakes with it.

 

[AndyT]

I've still got a nice Rabone that I bought in about 1973, with cm/mm on both sides, fractional inches on one side, decimal inches on the other. It has a 50% chance of having the wrong face up and a 50% chance that the scale I want will be in the wrong place. But it seemed normal at the time and I'm pretty sure ordinary school rulers were similar. In maths lessons, we definitely drew graphs on paper marked out in inches and tenths.

 

[CHJ]

...It has a 50% chance of having the wrong face up and a 50% chance that the scale I want will be in the wrong place. ...

Was ever thus, but none the less frustrating now as it was many years ago when it first deemed to annoy.