problems with metrication

[Yorkshire Sam]

I am of that age that my mensuration at school was all about imperial measurement. I learned feet,inches, yards etc, this also included other measures such as chains, furlongs, miles, gallons, pints, gills, etc. I grew up and have used these measurements for most of my life and have not only a working knowledge of them but can also 'visualise' such measurements... if someone tells me something is about 6 inches long, half a yard, or even two fathoms... I have a rough idea of what they would look like. Even though I have learned ( and to a lesser extent) used the metric system I have never really been able to visualize these, especially in lengths. Because I have never been comfortable with its use I tend to fall back on imperial. If some one tells me something is 1.7 metres I find it difficult to picture this without reverting to a ruler for help! Since I started learning woodwork after retiring, I realised that I would have to become more familiar with metric sizes and have tried to use the both in planning and execution to get a better 'feel' for it ..but not always with great success. While I can (and invariably do) convert to imperial for understanding, it is not always practical ( or possible ) to get an accurate measure. Take for instance a chisel ... 7/8th size does'nt always accurately convert to metric, people often round to metric and quote 22mm or 25mm or somewhere roughly in between. (So I am still searching for a real 7/8th chisel to complete my set :lol: )

Sorry if my rant has been a bit long but I needed to paint the picture. Are there any educators out there who can help a stuck in the mud old wrinkly get a better feel for working in metric?

 

[bugbear]

Sorry if my rant has been a bit long but I needed to paint the picture. Are there any educators out there who can help a stuck in the mud old wrinkly get a better feel for working in metric?

Just practise. Your expertise in "other" systems comes simply from your degree of exposure to them..

BugBear

 

[andys wood shed]

Do you still convert £p into £sd ?

 

[dc_ni]

I was taught metric at school and learnt imperial off my dad. Used both at work, when I say I used both, I mean that literally in the sense that section sizes were imperial and lengths were metric, so it would be 1½" at 1200mm.

As Bugbear said, it just comes with practice.

 

[Mike.S]

I'm in my fifties, so had a similar education and find myself still converting between the two. My 'rough and ready' calculators include:

- average male person's height = 5'9"=1.75m
- the ditty "a litre of water is a pint and three quarters" (and weighs 1kg)
- 1km = 5/8 mile
- 1m = 1 yard
- 1500m = 1 mile (the 'metric mile')
- 4 thou = 0.1mm

No, they're not exact but help in my trying to visualise dimensions and quantities. Commonly used measurements stick in my memory, so a 4" x 2" piece of wood is equally recognised as 100mm x 50mm and an 8' x 4' board is 2.4m x 1.2m.

HTH

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Do you still convert £p into £sd ?

I can, still, easily. I often use metric and imperial in the same measurement as well. I have an excercise book from junior school in the early '60's where I had to use £ s d and farthings : miles, furlongs, chains, rods, poles and perches : gallons, quarts, pints, gills and fluid ounces : gallons, bushels and pecks : Hundredweights, stones, pounds and ounces. Oh, and acres and fathoms for good measure. There were actually calculations done in all these - quite a handful for a nine or ten year old.

 

[pcb1962]

Do you still convert £p into £sd ?

Every time I get a packet of crisps from the machine at work I think to myself "Good heavens, 10 shillings for a packet of crisps!"

 

[novocaine]

piping still uses both, i.e. 6" 20m

makes it fun when straight out of uni as a design engineer you get lumped with it, wasn't an issue for me (dad was a plumber) the jolly nice chap from the much better uni with the much better degree on the other hand failed to grasp it.

*smug face

 

[bugbear]

Do you still convert £p into £sd ?

Every time I get a packet of crisps from the machine at work I think to myself "Good heavens, 10 shillings for a packet of crisps!"

OTOH, you must get REALLY exited about your income!

BugBear

 

[Benchwayze]

Do you still convert £p into £sd ?

You have a point Andy; except with decimalised money there are only two units to think of; pounds and pence. And they both respond to 'add a nought'! :mrgreen:

Not a lot that was new, to get used to really! :mrgreen:

 

[t8hants]

What ever you do, don't work in centipedes (sorry centimeters) these are the work of the devil and have to be beaten out of school leavers. Mill's and meters are fine, nothing else is needed.

 

[RossJarvis]

Being both qualified in engineering and carpentry, I find that millipedes are fine for precision engineering but totally pointless when working in wood, they just don't make any sense in comparison to real measurements. I'm currently seeking an inches only tape measure to go with my other measuring stuff, but there's only one available in the UK. For some reason, the bit I want to measure is usually always on the wrong edge of the tape :x

 

[Benchwayze]

You can buy left-handed tapes you know Ross.

 

[JakeS]

Are there any educators out there who can help a stuck in the mud old wrinkly get a better feel for working in metric?

To kind of echo what others have said, I suspect that your problem is largely this:

While I can (and invariably do) convert to imperial for understanding

I have the opposite issue - I was brought up metric, taught the SI at school, and then I came into contact with lots of things which were measured in Imperial units; what worked for me was to just not bother trying to convert them to 'proper' units unless I really needed to for some very particular reason. Like that I got more of a grasp for what certain units actually meant because I was using them directly instead of really falling back on using the system I was more comfortable with and just pretending to be using Imperial 'cause that's what I started with.

I still only really understand inches (and I guess miles and pints) with any degree of accuracy, since that was the unit I needed to be able to use (and I still vastly prefer SI!) but I can imagine 36" as easily as I can imagine 900mm.

 

[John15]

To help me work and think in metric I mainly use metric only rules and tapes. I found those that have both Imperial and metric on the same face were confusing and holding me back from thinking only in metric.

John

 

[RossJarvis]

You can buy left-handed tapes you know Ross.

I know that , I've also been told I can turn it the other way up, but in practice it never quite works. You really need to have the inches on both sides of the tape for the b****y thing to work properly

 

[RogerP]

You can buy left-handed tapes you know Ross.

I know that , I've also been told I can turn it the other way up, but in practice it never quite works. You really need to have the inches on both sides of the tape for the b****y thing to work properly

I'm mainly right-handed but hold a tape in my left hand so I can mark with my right hand. Surely that the way most right-handers work? To me it seems the so called left-handed tapes are really for right-handers.

 

[undergroundhunter]

I left school in 2005 so was taught the metric system, once I left and got into the real world I picked up feet and inches, these are now my preferred unit of measure as like many others I find them easier to visualize. The only time this changes is at work if we are measuring small gaps (tappets and such) in which case I will go metric. I don't find it causes me a problem when working wood as long as I stick to one unit and not try to mix them.:x

Matt

 

[Sawyer]

I'm currently seeking an inches only tape measure to go with my other measuring stuff, but there's only one available in the UK. For some reason, the bit I want to measure is usually always on the wrong edge of the tape :x

Who's offering this, Ross? I spent ages searching in vain, eventually finding one company willing to do bulk orders. I only want one or two! Or buy one on Ebay from the US at ludicrous shipping cost (about £50!!!)
As luck would have it, when I bemoaned all this on Facebook, a friend just happened to be on holiday in the States, kindly popped into the nearest hardware shop and procured an imperial-only tape measure at minimal expense.

I did manage to buy on Ebay, a Lufkin imperial-only 6' folding wooden rule at for reasonable price and modest shipping fee (so why's a tape measure so difficult?).

Being in France, metric for me is merely a means of communicating with the locals, to be used in conjunction with the French language.

Now, armed with both an imperial tape measure and folding rule, I gleefully give an 'Agincourt Salute' to the Metric Thought Police.

Sam, re; the exact 7/8" chisel, does it matter? I've got by for 30+ years with nothing between 3/4" and 1"

 

[John15]

I've got a 3m Stanley metric only tape - I think I got it from Axminster. It's really nice to use, metric top and bottom.

John