What is your preferred measurement scale?

[Andrew Seemann]

That is curious because your currency is base 10 and I presume you do not have trouble with that.

I'm not typically trying to convert currency by a third or the golden ratio

[Chris Parks]

I'm not typically trying to convert currency by a third or the golden ratio

Metric countries don't seem to have that problem and apart from the US that is basically the rest of the world.

[Matt Mattingley]

At no time I’ve ever considered that (one measurement scale is better than the other, or)one is more superior to another. Measurement is a source of reference. Any source of reference is determined by X.

This is a preferred measurement thread and machine readout thread and how you deal with the machines readout if it’s not in your preferred scale of measurement.

I don’t even care if this goes off topic. I just am wondering how others deal with metric machines when used to Imperial Machines in their shop?

My old thickness planer used to take 0.100 per hand wheel rotation. My new thickness planer takes 2 mm or 0.079”.

[Bill Jobe]

Just thought I'd throw in the rod, since no one else has mentioned it.

[John K Jordan]

How goes your struggle?...
Thank you 25.4!

Good grief, give the guy an inch and he takes a meter.

I guess I'm sort of bilingual but only after years of force-fed diet.

On the milling machine I think in thousandths since my dials are in thousandths. For constructing things like the shop and farm buildings, it's inches and feet for me. For weight I use grams for small things and ounces/lbs for heavier things. I have no idea how many kilograms one of my llamas weighs. When mixing chemicals I measure small amounts of liquids in milliliters and larger amounts in cups and gallons. I bottle honey by the lb or gallon because that's the way the containers come but the labels are required to have both metric and imperial. For me pressure is always in lb/sq in, vacuum in inches of mercury, and temperature is in F except in the darkroom (which I don't have anymore). I'm slowly getting better at guessing metric thread pitch. Hey, how come there is not both imperial and metric standards for time??! Ha.

Fortunately, digital calipers and other electronic measurement things are switchable as needed.

In the shop when measuring something small to fit or using a center-finding ruler I find metric a lot quicker and less prone to error. After some practice I can now visualize and judge sizes in CM and MM better than 32nds. Since many vehicles and mechanical things these days use metric fasteners I'm finally getting to where I can usually guess if I need a 10mm wrench. But although I can often estimate a 10th or half mile I don't thing I'll EVER get the hang of kilometers.

Fortunately, in woodturning only the relative size is important most of the time. I have plenty of dividers and calipers for this and verniers I use for the distance, not the numbers.

It's tough for some of our elderly brains. However, since it looks like metric is not going away for the good ol' US of A consider this: when kids and grandkids are in the shop teach them to work in both metric and inches when they are small. Life might be easier for them if they grow up bilingual!

JKJ

[Martin Wasner]

I don’t even care if this goes off topic. I just am wondering how others deal with metric machines when used to Imperial Machines in their shop?

You know both systems and how to convert between the two. I have two SAC shapers, one reads in imperial, the other in SI. Not an issue. Every other euro made tool I've got has a scale in both so no math required.

Almost all of the hardware we use is metric, no big deal.

It's just a stick. In a cabinet shop, there's no advantage to either other than base 16 fractions can be handled mentally easier by most than going four decimal places deep. But, you need to be able to do that as well because pounding numbers into a programmable stop as a fraction takes too long.

You really need to be able to flip around from both measurement systems and the decimal and fractional equivalents of both.

I will say feet have no place in a cabinet shop, we're simple folk and that's confusing when you've spent your entire career just reading inches on a print.

[jack forsberg]

I’m able to handle any measurement system. one thing I do find interesting is to see how woodworkers adapt to metalworking measurements. Generally woodworkers will tell you that thousands of an inch don’t matter in woodworking because the wood is expendable and contracts . I believe what they mean to say is that the tolerance in woodworking is not necessary down to a 1000th of an inch . What’s important to note is that 250 of them make a quarter of and inch to an Accuracy of 1000. Their usefulness is in position And accuracy.Now I can understand the argument that this is not a useful strategy in woodworking but it is certainly one when it comes to setting up machines for woodworking. It has in recent years become so affordable to own anything remotely accurate for woodworking so not to have such a measuring device is no longer an argument. We often by sand papers in metric in microns but very few people are aware of micro inches and in fact machinist gage blocks are set to an accuracy of one millionth of an inch. The accuracy of such numbers can only be attained in instrument rooms who’s climate is controlled at a constant temperature. Measurement is not as important as accuracy.

[Joe Calhoon]

I converted to metric in the shop when we started building Euro doors and windows. The hardware for those is like the 32mm cabinet system X 50. When we built cabinets decimal inches worked well. The Martins convert back and forth at the flip of a switch and most of the other digital machines pretty easily if needed and all my manual machines have dual scales. The digital stuff always stays on metric though. I still measure jobs in imperial, don’t know why...
Always do shop drawings in imperial for the customer but they easily convert to metric in the cutlist and cad programs.

Its a curse to have to work both systems but that’s where we are. Feet and inches from architects and contractors are a major pain but do not see that changing in the near future. Shops in Europe work in mm even at the long lengths.

[Chris Parks]

As has been said a few times before whenever this subject crops up, don't convert, design in the system you mean to build in. Neither system has any advantage in actually measuring the length of something, the advantage metric has is in calculation and by definition no fractions because everything is designed to one whole millimetre.

[Pat Barry]

Inches and fractions thereof. Hopefully no need for less than 1/64 as I can' t see anything less than that so clearly. All my measuring tools are inches. The only reason I use metric is because I have to. If I had CNC I would still use inches, just decimal instead of fractions. Thanks

[Curt Harms]

Inches and fractions here. Nothing against SI; it's just mental inertia that keeps me using traditional measurements.

I think that's the case for most of us, plus metric fasteners are not as readily available and therefore cheap as Imperial. I find it sorta funny that people talk about xx.xxxx millimeters. I wonder if those people know how small even .1 of a millimeter is. I'd be surprised if most woodworkers using metric measure to less than .5 mm, or about 1/50" or .02"

[Jim Becker]

For woodworking, I shoot for .5mm Curt and even that's tenuous given moving one's head while measuring can change the precision. 1/32" for inches is the general expectation when I work in inches for general woodworking. But I also work in a way that I establish overall dimension and then measure off the assembly to get a tight fit by sneaking up on it when that's a practical thing. With CNC, it's normal to talk about thousandths for some things because the tool can support that, unlike most human fingers and eyes.

[William Adams]

Metric countries don't seem to have that problem and apart from the US that is basically the rest of the world.

Yeah, except for those layouts I keep getting from metric countries where the width of a two column ad != col. width * 2 plus gutter width --- and casting off the manuscript doesn't work out correctly due to rounding errors as opposed to the actual typesetting page count.

And I still don't have an answer to a fully metric set of formulas for CNC chipload and feed/speed calculation:

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....-for-machining

[Bill Jobe]

"One thing people get hung up on is the idea that stock needs to be 3/4" or whatever. No, it just needs to be consistent."

There's a brilliant mind.

[Carlos Alvarez]

That is curious because your currency is base 10 and I presume you do not have trouble with that.

We do, have you tried to split $10 three ways?