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Peter Huebner

In article , says...

What with China making all the tools, we're slowly indoctrinating them into
the Imperial system. Then all the stuff that goes to Europe, etc., will be
in FPS measurements and all will come back to that which has worked so well.

Look, MKS (Meter/Kilogram/Second) is okay for science and whatnot, but it
just doesn't work for human use.

"A pint's a pound the world around" and it will be again.

You got that bass ackwards. Many countries changed from imperial to metric.
When I was a kid, there were still imperial nuts and bolts and tools in use in
Germany. By the time I was a teen, they had disappeared. When I moved to New
Zealand in the early 1980ies everybody was still talking inches and feet (so I
converted) but by now I seem the only one still using inches for timber size
grin, everybody else uses mm -- actually I use mm as measurement for doing my
joinery, I just think to _order_ 4x1 and 6x2 etc.

Trust me, metric is a heck of a lot easier to use, and makes a lot more sense
than fractions. One look at a metric ruler next to an imperial one will
illustrate what I mean.

Of course I can appreciate that using fractions acts like a kind of mental
aerobics to keep the grey matter working.

OT (because it's metalwork) but still relevant is my experience that metric
threads work better than imperial ones. I have had a lot more trouble with
imperial screws and bolts on machinery shaking/working loose than with metric.
Coarse metric is finer and the pitch is different. Fine metric (as found on H/T
bolts for instance) is even better still in demanding applications.

-P.

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