boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

I do the cooking. I brought my famous chocolate bread pudding to a meeting where there were a lot of europeans. They asked for the reciepe. I couldn't tranlate the amounts to metric. So I gave them the cups pints etc. They looked very confused.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

They USED to actually be 2x4, now it's just a lumber name reference.

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

Yes and if you really want to confuse people talk in board feet and shrinkage factors...😎

joelbolden

I was in the Navy back then and the entire U.S. military was supposed to switch to metric. We took a submarine ESM system to sea for the first time that cost 1 billion to develop, and it provided data only in metric. The submariners(the entire US Navy) refused to switch, so conversion software had to be provided. Don't recall what that cost...

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

Yes, I really, really prefer the metric system, its soooo much more uncomplicated and actually makes a whole lot more sense!

btbg

Also, currently there is no such thing as a metric framing square. Try cutting rafters at a 4 and 13 pitch in metric. Almost impossible to accomplish without a framing square.

btbg

Actually most residential building is on a 16 inch model. The rest of your points about dimension lumber are correct.

I spent some time in the 80s working as quality control in a sawmill that exported lumber to the middle east and Japan. We had to reset all of our equipment each time we ran an export order. If we were to convert then it would be impossible to buy matching lumber sizes for any remodel jobs. For example a 2x4 run through a planer is actually 1 5/8 by 1/7/8 because it was cut 2/4 as a rough size. Once dried it becomes approximately 1.5 by 3.75 inches. The equivalent metric cut is 50mm x 100mm or 3.93700787 inches by 1.96850398 inches.

Do you really want to try to put lumber that size into a house that currently uses 2x4s. The difference becomes even more pronounced when you go to 2x6, 2x8, 2x10 and 1x12. Do you really want to make it that difficult to remodel or repair an old house?

Dalek Loc: Detroit, Miami, Goffstown

I recently learned to use the metric system, 9X19, 9X18, 7.62X51, etc. I like it

btbg

They are 2x4 before being planed. They are then run through a planer and that reduces the size to something like 1 3/4 x 3 3/4. Then as they dry and shrink they reduce in size to approximately 1.5 x 3.5.

The dimensions stated are all for rough lumber before it is planed. To be efficient they remove the smallest amount of wood that they can when planing to account for deviations in the wood as it runs through the other sawmill equipment.

Especially in the winter when rough lumber freezes it sometimes is not completely straight as the saws cutting it cause waves as they hit spots that are frozen harder. Enough would needs to be planed off to leave a smooth finished surface.

therwol Loc: USA

I visit the UK frequently and drive when I'm over there. Distances are still measured in miles and yards, and auto speedometers display miles per hour. Odometers report mileage, not kilometerage (if that's a word.) In supermarkets, it's against the law to advertise prices by the pound, but you can still request meat or anything else by the pound, if that's what you're used to. A lot of older people over there still think in those terms. We have seen bathroom scales in the homes of friends that measure in stones (14 pounds). We used one of those to measure the weight of our luggage on one occasion.

As for what goes on in the US in manufacturing, at this point it's probably up to the manufacturers how they want to handle the situation. In the meantime, I'll keep two sets of tools handy, probably forever.

10MPlayer Loc: California

Jimmy Carter tried and failed to institute the metric system in the US a generation ago. California Department of Transportation tried and failed, making it mandatory for all engineering plans to be submitted in metric units. Somewhere around 2010 they gave up and went back to the English system.

As a land surveyor I had to be proficient in metric, English and some Spanish and French systems of measurements. Most old deeds, especially public land patents, use chains and links as the units of measurement. Sixty-six feet to a chain. One hundred links per chain. Along with that is the rod or perch, about a 1/4 chain. Then there is the Spanish vera, used in old sovereign land grants. It's the Spanish equivalent of a yard, approximately 32 inches.

The problem with all these systems isn't using one or the other. The problems come in when you need to go back and forth between one of the other. We would get Caltrans plans in metric but when we had to establish the boundaries of the project, the surrounding properties' deeds described the boundaries in feet/10ths & 100ths or chains/links and we had to go through the tiresome process of breaking down the property boundaries in feet 10ths & 100ths then converting them back to metric. Then when doing the calculations for staking out new construction we had to convert everything back to feet/10ths/100ths of a foot for the guys who actually build the road or offramp. Every time you add a new calculation step to the process you add another chance for a miscalculation. We have a technical word for it but I can't use it here but it starts with f and ends with up.

So I know why surveyors and lawyers hate metric. Deeds are written in survey feet. Old public lands deeds are written in chains and links. People understand that stuff. They don't have a feel for meters and millimeters. Most construction guys have never been exposed to it so they don't like what they don't understand. (of course here in California most of them are Mexican and probably do know the metric system) If one time they could learn it and understand it they would see how it makes life easy. But people fear what they don't understand.

I was a champion of going metric for years until I got into surveying and had to fight with two or three different measuring systems on one project. Then I came to believe we should leave well enough alone, at least as far as property and title goes.

10MPlayer Loc: California

Tradition. The first modern marathon was 40km. Then in 1908 in the London Olympics >>>"As the story goes, Queen Alexandra requested that the race start on the lawn of Windsor Castle (so the littlest royals could watch from the window of their nursery, according to some accounts) and finish in front of the royal box at the Olympic stadium—a distance that happened to be 26.2 miles (26 miles and 385 yards). The random boost in mileage ending up sticking, and in 1921 the length for a marathon was formally standardized at 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers)."

bodiebill

The problem was far beyond the mathematical conversion issue, which is rather simple. We used both English and Metric dimensions on our engineering and shop drawings, but the investment in machines, jigs and fixtures, calibration/measuring instruments, and tools was another very large economical issue. Retooling for metric conversion was costly.

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

America leads the world. Let the world change to our system. (:

repleo Loc: Boston

Back in the day, my Irish farmer Father would take me to the cattle market. The cattle were usually sold in groups of 13 because that was what would fit on a truck. The weight – Tons, CWT and Quarters (CWT = hundred weight = 112 lbs) - for the entire lot was displayed as they came into the ring. The cattle were sold by the lot but the bidding was based on an average price per animal. Bidding was in Pounds, Shillings and Pence. (1 pound = 20 shillings, 1 shilling = 12 pence). Farmers based their bids on the price – pence per pound (deadweight) – being paid by the abattoir that day.

Very few of the farmers ever went past 6th grade in school, but they could all do the math in their heads in less than a minute and to a fraction of a penny to know what to bid. I gave my father a pocket calculator for Christmas one year. After playing around with it for an hour or so he declared the calculator totally useless – the cattle would be sold and out in somebody else’s field before he would be able to work out a bid.