Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Didn't engineers once use 1/10" increments at one time?

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

LOl
I use baking pans to keep my metric and SAE tools apart. Other wise it was hunt for one or the other.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

In the 1970's I was chairman of an industrial yarn group converting to metric, Kodak, Dupont, Celanese, and Firestone. We were there and suddenly congress filled with people who could not divide by 10 said it would confuse the American people. ???. Now the official inch is being changed to the width of Trumps tumb.

In my training as a Chemist, we never used teaspoons and giggers tomeasure things. All metric.

Some metrics in Chemistry/Science are being redefined for greater precision:
https://www.nist.gov/si-redefinition/redefining-mole

dhroberts Loc: Boston, MA, USA

The problem with the Hubble had nothing to do with metric-Imperial confusion. Rather, a test bed for the mirror was faulty in a very subtle way. When the mirror was found to be misshaped and the origin was understood, it was a simple matter to add a correction lens to each of the instruments onboard. Of course, this required a service mission by astronauts. In due course each of the instruments was replaced, and of course each replacement carried the appropriate optical correction.

Metric-Imperial confusion caused a Mars landing to go astray. As I recall this was due to a NASA-contractor misunderstanding about units. I can't imaging that NASA was ever more embarrassed.

llamb Loc: Northeast Ohio

I never wrote that anything should be scraped. I just wrote that if one buys a METRIC socket set it will be only be metric at one end. I have absolutely nothing against any system; I use and like them all. At one time, I too spun wrenches for a living and still have a go at it for my tractors and electric motorbike.

~Lee

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

I did fine the metric system great for mixing chemicals, especially ratios, but still have problems with grains and grams lol

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

I made a trip to the US 42 years ago and was quite interested to see how they were getting on since I had been reading that the US was going metric. Sadly you are still mucking around.
The US has a reputation outside the US of never finishing a war properly eg Vietnam, Korea and Iraq (I don't want to debate the necessity of these wars but if you are going to get involved then finish it). Probably the same regards going metric. There must be something in the American mentality that prevents them going the whole hog.
NZ was Imperial, now the building industry is metric. A 2 x 4 became 50 x 100 or "dressed" 90 x 45. Every (that is EVERY) house built now uses metric.
I still have Imperial tools but haven't used them in the last 10 years (I also don't have any older English or American cars either).
In fact I have made a complete conversion to metric (but can still do Imperial if I need to) and the only bastion left of Imperial are the buyers for (for NOT from) home depot style stores who are persisting in stocking Imperial nuts bolts and screws sometimes to the exclusion of their metric equivalents. Their rational is that they still sell them and nobody complains. That is because complaining does no good and it never gets to the store owner. I go and buy from the distributor instead. The average guy couldn't care less usually whether he gets a 10mm bolt or a 3/8" bolt. He will walk out with whichever one he can. Have no 10mm in stock and he will accept 3/8" therefore the store buyers assumes no demand for 10mm. People rarely use their ability to think. The situation isn't so bad now as metric takes over but there are still a few holes in metric especially in stainless.
Re torx screwheads. They are superior to slot, philips, pozidrive and then squarehead (worst first). If you have trouble with any of them it is usually caused by a crappy tool bit rather than the head design.
Even we still have odd hangups like 1/2" square drive, TV screens in inches etc. Young people have no idea about imperial any longer so I wonder what they think when they come across it ?

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

You say it's idiotic to have SAE ratchets to drive metric sockets!!!! Would rather have to by metric ratchets to go with the metric sockets?

dancers Loc: melbourne.victoria, australia

i am an old woman who was taught the Imperial system at school....................metric is a huge pain... I remember the "times tables" very well, I do what we called mental arithmetic. I HATE the metric system.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

I investigated a move to Australia in the 1960, they were offering a "good" deal for American Mechanics to work on trucks and machinery made in the US, I scraped the idea when I found that I would have to have or buy a set of British standard and Whitworth tools.
Actually the "Square" Scru-Lok drive was a great screw especially for production use, but I found them to be easier use, the screw could be put on the end of the driver bit and them screwed in almost any position providing the bit and or screw head were not worn out.

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

What about British Standard and Whitworth ?

llamb Loc: Northeast Ohio

Frank,

All I said was ... Come on, how can they call a socket metric if it is 3/8 inch? Lighten up, do you not see the irony? (And idiocy?)

~Lee

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

" buy a set of British standard and Whitworth tools.
Actually the "Square" Scru-Lok drive was a great screw especially for production use, but I found them to be easier use, the screw could be put on the end of the driver bit and them screwed in almost any position providing the bit and or screw head were not worn out "

My preference is torx (but they are not common yet) then Square then Pozidrive whichever comes in the screw size I want.

" What about British Standard and Whitworth ? "

What about them ?
If you are buying tools then the only sockets you need are Imperial drivers or Whitworth. There are things like BSP etc (British Standard Pipe) but you can use an Imperial OR Metric pipe wrenches for those. Same with things like Crescents where you don't need to worry whether they will be used on Metric or imperial and your only concern there is the length of the tool and that is pretty easy to sort.

I must admit that the best rulers I have are ones with metric on one side and imperial on the other. And if measuring something I do sometimes pick the measurement which gives me the closest whole (as it were) number eg 7.5" as it is easier than 190.5mm. But I am doing it less and less often now.

This change is inevitable, like death and taxes, it will happen and the sooner the US accept that we can all move on.

Bigmike1 Loc: I am from Gaffney, S.C. but live in Utah.

When I went to Germany in 1962 I had to begin confronting metric. It wasn't all that difficult and also there is 220 volt electricity instead of 110. Things are different in Europe. Let them have metric. We have inches, miles and pounds, with which I am quite happy.

John N Loc: HP14 3QF Stokenchurch, UK

That the fault of the user not the system, we would just say 12.2m (rounded up) 12.192m (exact). What is important is to quote what you are using; i.e., mm's / cm's / m's as they can be confused.

11/16's or 23/32nd's would be followed by the notation though everybody knew what you were talking about.

During our changeover phase we used both and still do on property as a lot of those buying property still think in imperial terms. And although fuel is sold in litres we talk of m.p.g.

Supermarkets sell in kg's but smaller shops and market stalls can sell in lb's if they want. It'll be a sad day when you longer here a street monger calling out "pound of apples, Luv".

And perhaps most importantly of all - "Landlord, 568ml's of your finest bitter please". The devil in me wants to try this tonight if one of the young bright kids are on behind the bar!