What is your preferred measurement scale?

[Pat Barry]

"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.

if the piece is intended to fit, for example into a 3/4" dado then it will be much more important that the piece be 3/4" thickness where it fits the dado, and its lesser importance if it is consistent elsewhere. Answer is that the dimensions depend on their purpose.

[Bill Jobe]

if the piece is intended to fit, for example into a 3/4" dado then it will be much more important that the piece be 3/4" thickness where it fits the dado, and its lesser importance if it is consistent elsewhere. Answer is that the dimensions depend on their purpose.

One of us has clearly misunderstood Carlos.

[Carlos Alvarez]

One of us has clearly misunderstood Carlos.

My career in tech has always been about getting people to stop holding on to old "requirements." The way it goes is that you propose a new way to solve the problem, and the users give you a long list of reasons it won't work, mostly because they get hung up on doing all the old detailed steps as if THEY were the requirements. A guy working in metric would never build 3/4" dados; he'd make them 19mm. Sure, that's "the same" and they can often interchange also, but that's not the point. A lot of my builds have no specific number. I just finished a build where I absolutely cannot tell you a single dimension. I just ran down the cutting tools until I got a consistent set of pieces for the look I wanted. Is it metric or SAE?

[Bill Jobe]

My career in tech has always been about getting people to stop holding on to old "requirements." The way it goes is that you propose a new way to solve the problem, and the users give you a long list of reasons it won't work, mostly because they get hung up on doing all the old detailed steps as if THEY were the requirements. A guy working in metric would never build 3/4" dados; he'd make them 19mm. Sure, that's "the same" and they can often interchange also, but that's not the point. A lot of my builds have no specific number. I just finished a build where I absolutely cannot tell you a single dimension. I just ran down the cutting tools until I got a consistent set of pieces for the look I wanted. Is it metric or SAE?

Neither. I would refer to it as "custom".

[Steve Demuth]

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

It's easier to split 10" three ways? The closest you'll get on most inch rules is 3 11/32" - but very few woodworkers could do that quickly and easily in their head.

So, quickly now, divide a foot five ways in fractional inches.

My point is that in any system of measurement lots of division problems don't have "natural" answers. This is why we invented first the long division algorithm (for decimal systems!), and later was a good reason to carry a slide rule (decimal again), and eventually calculators.

[Carlos Alvarez]

It's easy to split up a foot three ways. The original point you responded to was that base 12 is more flexible and obvious.

[Matt Mattingley]

My career in tech has always been about getting people to stop holding on to old "requirements." The way it goes is that you propose a new way to solve the problem, and the users give you a long list of reasons it won't work, mostly because they get hung up on doing all the old detailed steps as if THEY were the requirements. A guy working in metric would never build 3/4" dados; he'd make them 19mm. Sure, that's "the same" and they can often interchange also, but that's not the point. A lot of my builds have no specific number. I just finished a build where I absolutely cannot tell you a single dimension. I just ran down the cutting tools until I got a consistent set of pieces for the look I wanted. Is it metric or SAE?

i’ve tried that a couple times and this is how it turns out. LOL

DC92212A-B7B8-4CC2-B06F-4A461E4CCCCB.jpg 88D2CF3F-3345-4000-B657-F395BE2FD376.jpg

[Carlos Alvarez]

i’ve tried that a couple times and this is how it turns out. LOL

That is really cool and I bet it took a huge amount of math to make it work out. Boxes are easy.

[Glen Gunderson]

It's easy to split up a foot three ways. The original point you responded to was that base 12 is more flexible and obvious.

I've done a lot of woodworking and cabinetmaking and I have yet to run into a situation where the ability to divide base 6 math into smaller increments easily provided any kind of meaningful advantage. I mean sure, if you're making a 60" long cabinet you can quickly divide it into three 20" doors, four 15" doors, or five 12" doors, but once you have to account for overlays, gaps, and reveals that simplicity goes right out the window. And if actual precision isn't required (as it wouldn't be with rough math like deciding on three 20" doors for a 60" cabinet), dividing base 10 numbers is just as easy. A similar sized 1.5m long cabinet could have three 500mm doors, four 375mm doors, or five 300mm doors. And of course the same would apply to a 15" length you're dividing up into 5.00", 3.75", and 3.00" increments.

[Steve Demuth]

It's easy to split up a foot three ways. The original point you responded to was that base 12 is more flexible and obvious.

But we don't use base 12, do we? We actually use base ten when counting whole inches and base 10 representations of binary fractions for fractional inches, then augment that with an arbitrary new unit called a foot that is 12 inches. But that 12 is useful in exactly one situation: dividing a whole number of feet into 3 fractions denominated in inches. For any other division problem in American units, you are dealing with a combination of base 2 and base 10 (if you stick with inches), or base 2, base 10, AND base 12 (if you go with inches and feet).

So, let's take a real problem with an actual measurement: what's 1/3 of 3 feet 11 5/8 inches? There you have base 12, base 10, and binary fractions expressed as decimal numbers all in the same problem.

I use binary fractional inches and decimal whole inches all the time. I have no issue with them. I can do the above in a few seconds if need be. But no way in any rational universe it is a more sensible system than metric (in which the above measurement would likely be read as 120.95mm, or maybe 121mm, and I could do the division by 3, or 5, or even 7 in a blink.

Personally, I'm comfortable with either system, as long as we're dealing with household lengths. American is far whackier for longer lengths (yards, rods and miles) and with volumes than metric, though, and if you're doing anything that goes beyond those simple things to deal with energy, power, pressure ... there is no comparison. Metric / SI is just saner.

[Frank Drackman]

I also spent many years in the tech field and much of my time trying to people to understand that there were different ways to solve problems instead of simply automating a manual task. They had a difficult time trying to get their head around the idea of focusing on the end goal instead of the steps to achieve the goal.

[Bill Jobe]

Then there's axe handles.
My dad used that from time to time and I recall sitting in our parked car with him one day on a busy city street. He was looking at a lady walking down the sidewalk. Says:" That must be sixteen axe handles across the beam........"

Over the line?

[Steve Demuth]

Then there's axe handles.
My dad used that from time to time and I recall sitting in our parked car with him one day on a busy city street. He was looking at a lady walking down the sidewalk. Says:" That must be sixteen axe handles across the beam........"

Over the line?

My old man thought, at least with respect to land measurement, in rods. A rod is 16 1/2 feet, which is an absurd measurement, but which is equal to 1 / 160th of half a mile, which means that a strip of land 1 rod wide in a quarter section (which is 1/2 mile square) is an acre. Alternatively, one acre = 160 square rods. A furlong is 40 rods, so a square furlong is 10 acres.

So, in the English system, you had 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 5 1/2 yards to a rod, 40 rods to a furlong, and 8 furlongs to a mile. Nothing confusing about that.

[Matt Mattingley]

Some odd facts about the imperial system

[Chris Parks]

My old man thought, at least with respect to land measurement, in rods. A rod is 16 1/2 feet, which is an absurd measurement, but which is equal to 1 / 160th of half a mile, which means that a strip of land 1 rod wide in a quarter section (which is 1/2 mile square) is an acre. Alternatively, one acre = 160 square rods. A furlong is 40 rods, so a square furlong is 10 acres.

So, in the English system, you had 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 5 1/2 yards to a rod, and 40 rods to a furlong, and furlongs to a mile. Nothing confusing about that.

And don't forget the perch.