On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 06:43:15 -0400, Ed Huntress
wrote:

On Sun, 24 Apr 2016 14:21:47 +0700, Good Soldier Schweik
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:00:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sat, 23 Apr 2016 23:23:18 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:27:05 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I indicated 3/8" barstock to "close enough" of about 3 mils in a 3 jaw,
centerdrilled and used a livecenter.

3 mils????

0.003"

Oh..you mean 3 thousandths. NOBODY says 3 mils when machining..least
not in the US.

Only in plastic sheet making will you find it..and thats not
machining..thats extruding

Slang would be 3/1000s, 3k, an RCH, etc etc


I hate to agree with you but I never heard the term "mil" until very
recently and I worked in and around the business since I was in High
School. It was always 3 thousandths (.003) or 3 tenths (.0003) for
smaller dimensions.

Before the late 1930s, "mil" was used commonly in machining, too.


Well, I wasn't around the shops in the "late 1930's" :-)

But I did for a couple of weeks run a lathe that the cross slide was
calibrated in 1/128th of an inch. The owner of the shop reckoned it
dated from "Civil War Days".


Here's a little history of how we express "thousandth of an inch":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousandth_of_an_inch
--

Cheers,

John B.