Metric vs Imperial poll

Ok I see... Luckless ran out of luck when he replaced your imperial tape with a metric one...

Isn't this something you should take up with him personally ? Doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Metric vs imperial thread...

Anyway, I'm glad you didn't make the thousand dollar mistake, not that it's much worth from what I hear off late In ZAR it's like nothing... Gets even better in Zim dollars.

I have two tapes (Metric of course) and I bloody well never can seem to find any of them. The advantage of course is you cannot make any expensive mistakes if you cannot find the tape can you

 

This reminds me of a collossal mistake I saw happen on an oil platform. Two guys had come on board that day and had drawn new measuring tapes from the stores. They were put on a very highly important job of tying-in a riser, that is a pipe coming up from the sea on the platforms jacket, and joining it with a straight pup piece to another pipe already installed on the deck structure. Not a hard job but a very important one as the adjoining three pieces will all have already been hydrotested and once welded and X-rayed they would go straight into service.

Well they got stuck in and cut and prepped the fixed ends, then measured the gap, compared sizes and agreed that they had both got the same size. They then cut and prepped the pup-piece and offered it up only to find a sizeable gap.

What had happened was that one of the tapes that had been issued to them was marked in feet and decimal feet. Apparently these are used by drillers, I had never seen one in my life and have not seen another since. They must have used that one for their measure and the other ft & ins tape for marking their cut size. There was hell on about it, with many people saying they should have noticed. Needless to say the stores was searched for other similar tapes but none was found.

 

You also get these ornamental things that is some kind of a replica, like a key holder with a tape on it. If it's a toy it can also have faulty measurements on it.

Depends what you measure though. In some cases I can imagine you could score a bit like when you measure your 500mm long fish and you see it is almost 900mm in length

 

oh dam decimal feet
used by surveyors round here
every once in a while when Im laying out benchmarks I have to deal with those
what a pain
I keep all the decimal equivalents in my nogin but its a pain to have to convert on the fly
not hard
but just unnecessary
might as well be using cubits again
or rods and chains

 

I don't think we're taking this seriously enough

Guys like me and Luckless don’t complain about lack of luck and we don’t expect other people to complain about our attitudes either. Besides, I don’t have one, any more than I have an accent, like any other (ex)Brit.

No problem: I choose my own. That’s the beauty of the system, don’t need a tape measure.

I think the issue here is how well YOU can work, not the metric system. Once the boat (satellite, automobile, etc) is built it doesn’t matter what system was used.

Actually, there you have me. It’s not like you can trust one tape to be exactly the same as another, and the first inch or centimeter is likely to be different from all the others on the same tape.



There! I think I got them all. If I missed anyone you can think yourself lucky!

 

You won't believe it, but I actually had someone that wanted me to make them We never discussed the system that would be used, but some technique was discussed Bit of an exciting time in our otherwise dull existence. I already imagined how I was going to test all the various models... You can't sell something if it wasn't tested and a very braud public opinion was gained, right

The intent was to do it extremely well. 6" really is 150mm... although 9" was by far more popular

 

That is unlikely, seeing as I work in a wide range of measuring systems and actually look at my tapes and check scales before using them. (And for the record, anytime I would swap someone's tape on them is when I'm working right with them and can point it out to them before they start cutting if they don't start cursing out the metric system the second they see cm listed on the tape. I worked with one guy that accidentally picked up my own tape measure that was listed as both Imperial and Metric, but it was a prototype with digital recording and storage of upto 20 numbers. He saw metric, cursed, and pitched it off the roof of a three story house and over the edge of the cliff. It would have been an impressive pitch if it hadn't put a friend out nearly a grand,... He picked my tape off the lunch table, then said I should thank him for getting rid of that piece of garbage.)

My tool belt usually carries at least 3 tapes, two matched tapes in the systems the current project is in, and one in the other for if something comes up that needs it.

 

I find cubit far superior than feet in boat building. I have no interest trying to walk along a gunnel of a inverted boat. Feets are actually better suited for walking distances and with some remarks for houses. Span is still the most handy way for mesurements anywhere and it really easy to convert to finger inches. Anything over a fathom is easier to measure with a ones lap
Seriously, if anything else except bodyparts is used then the metric is the way to go..

 

You said you couldn't find software to convert Cubits. You can make your own in Excel and even have a variable Input for your chosen base dimension. If you are not wanting to use a tape measure then your conversions must be into other body part units which you will also need to Input as variables, unless the convertor is for your own use only, in which case you do not need to enter variables, just enter the conversion factors directly into your formulas.

Although I am an Imperial supporter, I would use Metric measurements to determine the conversion factors in this instance

 

If I'm not mistaken, the ****-up happened in Canada when refueling the Boeing 767...correct me if I am wrong.

 

I have one of those special fishing tapes in my bait box, and the metric scale that goes with it

Ps; Fanie, are you going to the Bloemhof Bonanza end of this month?

 

Dunno, almost doubt it. If I do I'll let you know.

 

Fanie: in your place, I would certainly insist on assisting with the launch

Teddy: the Inuit have an entire range of dimensions for sizing a kayak to the paddler, using various body measurements. A bit like getting a bespoke suit.

Wynand: yes, it was in Canada, land of opportunity to excel in all kinds of things like gliding a jetliner. Recently, that skill got a workout in New York, courtesy of some (Canada) geese, I think. Sorry about that!

.

 

Hi Ancient, thanks for volunteering but I had (at the time) only females in mind to test them on

He he... would have worked in inches only

 

Has anyone noticed that many new US movies, like Star Treck and off-spring among others, actually speak in SI units?

It would be rather stupid of Spock to say "The Vulcan intestelar ship is 20 millions of stones in weight", wouldn't it. I mean, he would lose all his credibility on the spot... How big is a "stone"?

Imperial is stone-age measurement system.