It's a conspiracy - check your measuring devices

[k0ua]

My 20.32 cm Crescent Wrench is both metric and SAE while also being a darn good hammer.

View attachment 338749

Do you have to flip it over to use the metric side?

 

[jinman]

Do you have to flip it over to use the metric side?

No, but my 30.48 cm one is a much better hammer. I use that and a Phillips head "punch" to drive out shear bolt stubs on my rotary cutter.:thumbsup: Which brings up another question. Are screwdrivers metric or SAE? When an Allen wrench is metric, is it still an Allen wrench or a hex wrench?:confused2:

 

[2LaneCruzer]

My 20.32 cm Crescent Wrench is both metric and SAE while also being a darn good hammer.

View attachment 338749

That's what I like about my Vice Grips and my True-Temper hammer.

 

[mikehaugen]

No, but my 30.48 cm one is a much better hammer. I use that and a Phillips head "punch" to drive out shear bolt stubs on my rotary cutter.:thumbsup: Which brings up another question. Are screwdrivers metric or SAE? When an Allen wrench is metric, is it still an Allen wrench or a hex wrench?:confused2:

Not sure if you were being sarcastic, but slotted screwdrivers can be either. Phillips are just numbered, obviously.

 

[aczlan]

I'm in the go metric group. 10% of a foot is just no fun by comparison.
It takes a while to get a sense of how far a kilometer is, or how long 10cm is, but it develops eventually if you use it. I think that is part of the reluctance to switch, or maybe they are afraid they will be cheated because they don't understand the numbers very well.
The origin of the use of 12 , 16 or 20 in measures and currencies is thought to be that they lend themselves to even division of small quantities.
Twelve can be divided in half, thirds, quarters and sixths for example much easier than ten can.

I give you 5, 3.33, 2.5, 1.66 and 1.25. Works very well with the appropriate smaller measurements (ie: Meter, Centimeter and Millimeter, Liter, Milliliter, etc). 1 Meter/3 = 33.3CM or 333MM. 1 Meter/6 = 16.6CM or 166MM.

Aaron Z

 

[orezok]

The USA does not really use the Imperial system of measurements.

In Jolly old England they use to use the Imperial system.
1 USA inch - Imperial = 1.25 USA inches.
1 Imperial gallon was 1.25 US gallons. Old gas cans use to be so marked.
Almost every American wrench would work, with 1 exception. That would be a 19/32's. common in England.
To the best of my knowledge the only American use for that size was the connecting Rod Bolt nuts on a model "A" Ford.

Ahhh... Now I know what that 19/32 socket I have is for! I always wondered. I got it from my dad, and it's probably 70+ years old.

I cracked it 30 years ago, probably using it on a 5/8 bolt. It's been setting in my tool box all these years because one day I'm going to take it back to Sears (it's a Craftsman) and demand a replacement for their "lifetime" tools! :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

 

[orezok]

Back in the late 60's, my first job out of college was working for a steel fabricator. They hired me for my Metallurgy training, which turned out to be a waste as 6 months later they got out of the steel fab business and became a general contractor. I spent the rest of my career in construction.

But to get back to the point of this post, one of the first jobs I has was making cut sheets for rebar. Rebar comes in 60' sticks and I manually determined which pieces to cut out of each stick. The estimating department would send over a list of how many of each size and type of rebar (stirrups, column bars, bent shapes etc.) and I had to make cut sheets that minimized waste from each 60' bar. Remember, this was before computers.

The only tool we had was a simple mechanical calculator that worked much like an odometer. It had a series of "clock" wheels that you turned with a stylus. The wheel in the right was an inch wheel and the rest were foot wheels.

All day long all I did was spin the wheels to get the waste from each stick to less than 6". It was quite complicated as there may be 100 pieces of one length, 20 of another and 5 of a third and so on. To add to this, if a bend was added, you had to either add or subtract length as it changes the pieces unbent length.

It taught me a lot about spacial thinking and to this day I can convert any inch/foot length down to an eight of an inch to a decimal foot length in my head in seconds. i.e. 6 5/8" = .542'

Fun job!

 

[SPYDERLK]

1 tsp = 1/3 tbsp = 15 ml.

Yep, yep, nope

 

[IslandTractor]

Yep a tablespoon is almost 15ml. and a teaspoon is almost 5ml. so that it what they were trying to get to.. Our imperial system of measurement is stupid to begin with.. why in "heck" didn't we convert to metric back in the 70's when all the noise was made about doing it. In all of our science classes, everything was always measured in the metric system. And then you go home, and deal with "tablespoons, and teaspoons".. who in "heck" came up with that? It would have been a lot easier back then.. just stupid...

Agree completely. So much easier to use metric system. I have, after all, ten fingers to help. I don't have 16 fingers or 1/8th of anything or 64 of anything to help. Really, I wish we had just sucked it up and converted back in the mid 1970s.

 

[k0ua]

Agree completely. So much easier to use metric system. I have, after all, ten fingers to help. I don't have 16 fingers or 1/8th of anything or 64 of anything to help. Really, I wish we had just sucked it up and converted back in the mid 1970s.

well darn.. something else we agree on.... this is getting scary!