On Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:37:07 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"Ivan Vegvary" wrote in message
news:4hcHi.1822$fz2.1760@trndny03...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

When it comes to measurement, the advantages of metrics are illusory.

--
Ed Huntress


Ed, could you please explain the above so I can understand.

Thanks,

Ivan Vegvary

Sure. If you're doing a calculation involving, say, force, volume, and mass,
metrics usually (but not always) make your work easier. If you're measuring
the diameter of a crankshaft journal, metrics provide no advantage
whatsoever.

Most manufactured metal parts can be measured in inches; we don't get
involved with feet, yards, etc., and the rest of the red herrings that the
pro-metrics folks toss into the discussion. It's mostly inches and decimal
inches.

So the units don't matter. Mathematically, we handle them the same, whether
they're inch or metric. And most of the occasions we have in manufacturing
to use inch (or Imperial) units versus metric ones are cases of linear
measurement.

There is no benefit at all in using metric measure... other than the fact that
pretty well the entire rest of the world uses it. In modern manufacturing
outside the USA, Imperial measure is an historical curiosity and children
haven't been taught Imperial measure for two or three decades even in the UK.
If you want to sell to the rest of the world, think metric. If you want to buy
from the rest of the world, think metric.

I'll even have a dual inch/metric machine in the workshop when I finish
refurbishing it... it's a Hardinge HLV :-). everything else is Imperial, but I
do have metric micrometers up to 100mm for when they're needed.


Mark Rand
RTFM