Why is the U.S. system of measurement so weird?
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- Опубліковано 16 чер 2024
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In this video I explain how measurements used in American woodworking and construction work.
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#woodworking #metric #imperial - Навчання та стиль
It's also useful to remember that to cut a fraction in half keep the top the same and double the bottom. Half of 5/8 is 5/16 half of 11/16 is 11/32.
Oh my god how did I not know this before now
So just keep your all projects smaller than or equal 1 inch and be happy?
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
I think this is the Tip of the year, I have been an industrial mechanic my entire adult life and wood working with all my spare time and never ever heard of this or even thought about it this way.hahah super cool. Thanks
I was 60 years old today when I learned just how dumb I am.
That's exactly what multiplying by 1/2 is... doubling the denominator. I think most folks learned this in school, but just forgot as they got older. 🙂
I grew up with imperial, but later would alternately use both imperial and metric in most of my simple projects. But when it comes to more elaborate or complicated crafts where you need to also divide length by 3 or 5 or sometimes by more irrational numbers, metric is the way to go. By now, I'm always metric whenever I start a work from scratch.
As an engineer (in Australia) I communicate in either millimetres or metres, depending on the application.
My wife always talks in centimetres - the conversion is trivial, but it always creates a little double take for us.
Interestingly, Australians still talk about things being "miles away" and such like, even though nobody under 50 really has a good feel for how far a mile is. "Kilometers away" just doesn't roll off the tongue in the same way.
I am so happy we rationalised our measurements, I would hate to have to deal with all the odd units and their scaling factors.
And guys, what is with "ounce" being both a volume and mass unit?
You're too used to all the tools available to the modern person. The English Imperial and American Standard systems were devised when most people had no access to such things. For example, most people used to metric use kitchen scales for weighing out flour and sugar and such; accurate scales are cheap and easy to get today and just about everyone can afford them. That wasn't the case when Imperial (and the derived Standard) units were defined.
They seem like "odd units" to you. They're second nature to us. If you look carefully, you'll find that no country is fully metric. While they may have adjusted things, things like the pound were so widely accepted that the Germans just redefined it (the pfund) to a half kilogram and still use it.
@@MKahn84 the Germans do not use Pounds The last time i heard someone wanting a pound of something was 20 years ago and from a very elderly person. Here in Germany there is nothing that is being measured imperial
I lived through first the currency change from pounds, shillings, and pence to the dollar ... and then the change to metric. I was at school during both of them, and I instantly found both new systems to be immensely easier to use. I was in primary school when we changed currencies (and had just master arithmetic with shillings and pence etc), and high school for the metrication change. In the latter case my select of electives etc was definitely what today would be called STEM (heavy on math and sciences) so metric would naturally be a better fit.
Now I live in the US, I've had to adapt back to Imperial .... though I can't help chuckling when they quote the old "a pint's a pound the world around" adage. You should see their jaws drop when I point out that every BUT the US, a pint is 1lb 4 oz.
@@stainlesssteellemming3885 And even in the United States, a pint of water doesn't weigh a pound! It actually weighs 1.04 pounds. Or 1 pound, 0.69 ounces.
I have always been a defender of the U.S. Customary system (it's not as bad as the metric snobs claim it is, and there are legitimate reasons why Americans use it), but even *_I_* have to admit that the fact that a U.S. pint of water doesn't weigh an even pound is utterly ridiculous. I can't defend that, so I won't. And likewise for fluid ounces and mass ounces, which have the same problem for the same reason. 😠
Get a tape measure with both imperial and metric, and if the plan is in imperial, use the imperial side, if it's metric use the metric side. You don't ever need to convert one to the other.
This is absolutely the best approach.
Hey, Google. Convert 10 centimeters to inches.
@@SteveRamsey I switched back to just Imperial. It is difficult to use the combination ones for squaring up a structure accurately. In Canada we still use Imperial for construction.
They're harder to find than you'd expect though. I have two currently, one was the only dual system I could find at a big box hardware store among a shelf that for some reason had 6 or 7 different inch-only variants with different fractions or multiples specially highlighted, and the other is a cheat import I got at a furniture store that I only assume was designed that way not to provide additional value for the user but purely so they could get away with selling the same design in other countries without having to deal with printing two different tapes.
At the same time I've seen people advise against this because you risk using the wrong side of the tape measure and end up making a wrong cut.
"the most important thing to know is that a 2x4 is actually an inch and a half by- aw, shi-"
This. This is exactly my struggle. I get both metric and imperial and they each have a place, but that's the kind of thing that is so difficult and confusing to me... But I'm learning, thanks to your videos!
I was really interested in looking at modern building construction when visiting Scotland a couple years ago to get an idea of dimension lumber sizes there. Your door frames in particular are much more robust than ours.
@@stevenemert837 It's because we're fat.
@@rahmiolgac That's about as logical as measuring in football fields instead of yards. :P.
@@DehnusNorder Except then the "football field" would actually be 95 yards instead of 100 yards.
@@ssvis2 When you're measuring in football fields? I don't think accuracy is your main goal ;).
I've been in USA my whole life, and I'm the first to admit woodworking in metric is so much easier. I'll find myself often using metric when doing fine measurements, as it just makes sense. For tools like wrenches, it's so much easier having wrench sizes like 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, than 5/16, 11/32, 3/8, 13/32, 7/16. If you gave me all the Imperial fractions between 0 and 1 to a 16th of an inch, it'd probably take me a minute to even put them in order. Metric, it's as easy as counting to 10... Imperial is just one of those things I live with,
Fastcap makes some wonderful metric tape measures. :)
Metric is not just easier, that is logical. Metric relates 2 and 3 dimensions. That relates area, volume and weight in the same package. A 10 x 10 x 10 centimeter "water" cube contains 1 liter, and weights 1 kilo. Change that to a 1 x 1 x 1 meter "water" cube and you get 1 cubic meter, 1000 liters and 1 ton.
@@GuilhermeSilva-rp2it "Logical"? 10 Centimeter cubed is 1 Liter? That's not "logical", that's just a fact that happens to be true.
@@xnamkcor well, it is a consequence, and is "logical" for 190 countries in the world. What is the volume or weight of 10 x 10 x 10 " ?
@@GuilhermeSilva-rp2it That's not what logical means, but ok.
"kind of dumb but you get used to it" applies to so so many aspects of life.
Additionally as someone who's former day job was software for a countertop manufacturer I can empathetically state that fractions are the devil. Having to constantly flip back and forth between 3/8 and 0.375 was just a nightmare. And then there's the math...
This!
why convert fractions to decimal format to do the work?
measure, calculate, and cut in metric. Imperial and fractions are as obsolete as the cubit in the 21st century digital world.
@@MrBonners No, it isn't. You'd know this if you knew what an absolute nightmare floating point representation is in computing. The "digital world" is at the fundamental level fractional. Binary is positive and negative powers of two. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64... and their inverses, 1,1/2,1/4,1/8.1/16...
I think a lot of this hatred of imperial (which is really based on the old Babylonian system of 360 units) comes from a residual hatred of fractions as they were taught and learned in school. Nothing else can explain it but that. There's nothing superior about metric except that it allays the anxieties of people who are bad at math.
I did the opposite. Many years ago I made a math error adding fractions in my head (always a bad idea due to limited brain capacity) and cut to 15 & 9/32 instead of 16 & 13/32 on a critical piece. That was it! My next trip to China I purchased a whole set of metric educated sticks, tapes and never looked back. Joy has has ensued. Just a few weeks ago I needed to measure a distance that exceeded the metric educated measuring devices. I was shocked. ALL my American educated devices had disappeared from assigned spaces, including the many from my father. Panic! Over many years I had moved the American stuff further and further into the dark recesses of the shop and forgotten. 20 minutes later I found the newer 100 foot tape measure, forlorn and dusty in a box with the other unused rulers, measures and stuff. Not sure where my father's 150 footer is. That is disturbing. I keep watching over my shoulder for it dangling from the rafters, ready to throttle me.
1 1/8 short - interesting error. I wonder what the two measures were?
The idea of a yellow 150 ft anaconda lurking in a shop, waiting for unwary metricated visitors to uncoil itself had me in stitches. Thank you.
Stay American!
No metric!
Too funny!
@@troykruse5161 Imperial was given to the USA by the British Empire, hence the term “Imperial “!
Steve, great video! Thanks! I started my work career as a machinist. Unknown to me, this would pay dividends later in life. Memorizing key fraction to decimal equivalents was SO helpful in converting to metric:
* 1/16” = .062” = 1.6mm
* 1/2” =.500” = 12.7mm
* .039” = 1mm
* 1” = 25.4mm
I was going to make the same comment. After years of running a Bridgeport I automatically think in thousandths. Makes things much simpler.
@@beckjam2 Ha! My first machine was the Bridgeport Vertical Mill! What an awesome (typically underutilized) piece. 😊
In woodworking, we mostly reference from the actual pieces for precision anyway.
For a good approximation, if you memorize 1/16"=1.6mm and are familiar with power of 2 numbers (binary system) it goes like this:
1/64" = 0.4mm
1/32" = 0.8mm
1/16" = 1.6mm
1/8" = 3.2mm
1/4" = 6.4mm
1/2" = 12.8mm
1" = 25.6mm
so the numbers are inverse proportional pivoting at 1/16.
As an American living in Germany, I am very familiar with both systems. I usually use metric for most measurements as the math is easier for my simple brain. Converting plans can be difficult, but doable.
In Germany we are not that unfamiliar with Inches since we still use it as well, it is just called "Zoll" and it is commonly used in pipe dimensions. This is why i could buy 3/4'' pipe clamps in the US and use it with pipes bought in Germany. Also The "traditional" name for our foldable rulers is "Zollstock" which also refers to the equivalent Inch, although most all of them are in metric :)
@@Flako-dd ganz genau :D
You have a good ability to explain "difficult" things, easily. Thanks for the good explanation. Greetings from a hobby woodworker from Europe.
It is an interesting situation. The USA was one of the first signatories to the metric convention about 130 years ago.
They set a trend, then. The US also pushed through the UN Declaration of Human Rights ...and then refused to adopt it.
@@stainlesssteellemming3885 I cannot argue with that. An anomaly to say the least.
Not to mention that in fact all the Imperial units are defined in SI units
I love the simplicity of the metric system:
1centimeter=10milimeters
1decimeter=10 centimeters=100 milimeters
1meter = 10 decimeters=100centimeters=1000milimeters
1kilometer= 1000 meters
Also calculating volume is much easier
a 10x10x10 cm cube has 1000 cm3 which is one liter
very convinient when making epoxy tables and estimating the volume
Although nobody uses decimeters
@@jcpatolo I agree, but it is mandatory to learn that in school
@@robertsfadejevs3144 decimeters same as fractions and ares (100th of a hectare) is something you learn in school and then never ever meet in real life.
@@jcpatolo and?
"which expensive miter gauge is best"
I see what you did there
No mention of "flick back?!?!"
I just found you today. I love love our videos! Also, your sense of humor…. Love it the most! Thank you! You have answered so many questions I have. I’m new to woodworking! Can’t wait to start doing more!
A good advantage of base 12 is it can be divided into 3rds without fraction / decimal. And like base 10, also 1/2 and 1/4. I suppose you could argue base 10 can be divided into 5ths, but that seems a less frequent need than 1/3rds! For the record, I generally use and prefer metric. Great ending.
Yes, 12 can be divided evenly by 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. That's pretty useful in a small market economy.
The problem is this only applies to feet and inches. It doesn't work for any of the volume units (gallons/ounces/pints/quarts) or the mass units (pounds/ounces). Also, it doesn't even work for the other distance units, miles/yards.
I think this argument would be a lot stronger if the *entire system* was base 12 and everything divided evenly by each other with base 12 but it just doesn't.
Also, sure it is nice to divide stuff with base 12, I'd argue that the decimals not aligning with the fractions isn't worth it. For example, 1.5 ft = 1 ft 6 in. And multiplying/diving by fractions of different denominators while not difficult is kind of annoying.
@@tubz _"Also, it doesn't even work for the other distance units, miles/yards."_
Actually, it does. Miles are divisible by an enormous number of factors. You can divide a mile by 2, 3 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, and a host of other factors, and get a nice whole number of feet. (As for yards, nobody really uses them outside of football and golf.)
I’m Canadian and I recently bought a good metric tape line and have used it on the last couple projects. I believe if a person works by themselves, and is willing to learn, metric is easier than the fractions involved in imperial. But it’s just not something most Americans are interested in trying or changing, and that’s fine.
A lot of us would love to, however all the materials we buy are dimensioned in Imperial units.
I mean metric is not something you need to learn. Its the most basic math there is...I am in awe that someone can work with imperial while metric is just 10s and basic sums without fractions bullshit
@@stevenemert837 nope. Canada has been metric since the early 70s. From furniture to hi-rise building construction is metric since the 70s. All tape measures are both metric and imperial. You are just finding this out now?
@@KOrbiid like Steve said in the video, we learn both in school. Metric is the official system in the US since the 19th century, there just wasn't a government mandate that everyone switch.
@@stevenemert837 not really an issue. plywood for example is commonly sold here (europe) in thicknesses like 12mm, 19mm, 38mm, etc. which equates to 1/2", 3/4" or 1 1/2".
Thank you, Steve, for pointing out the awesome powers of the metric system.
It’s not awesome. People who can only use the metric system are just bad at doing math. Lol.
With inches you don’t have to count. I can see 6 3/4” on a rule. I don’t have to count 171mm.
In any kind of trade using measurements you learn how to read a ruler. It’s easier to remember an integer number of inches plus a fraction than a measurement in millimeters. And the lack of a foot type unit in metric means you are using a lot of cm before you get to meters. Then you see silly things like .7 meters or .7mm. Can you find .7mm on a ruler? No, but I can read 1/32” on my ruler
Metric system is just simple math, no website or calculator needed.
@@MrMorton83 Impeial is just simple math too. And I don’t have to count because I can see the fractional divisions right on the ruler. When building things it’s easier to remember an integer number of inches plus a fraction than a measurement in millimeters, or that foot-inch measurements are more suitable when distances are frequently divided into halves, thirds and quarters, often in parallel. What’s half of 3/4”? 3/8”. I don’t have to count or do math. What’s half of 8.5” 4.25”. Simple. With metric 8.5” (a letter size piece of paper is 8.5x11”) is 215.9mm. Even if we round that up to 216, quick, what’s half of that?
The metric system also lacks a parallel to the foot. It goes from small units (mm, cm) to a meter. It’s just arbitrary and dumb. But I often use mm when I’m building things. If I’m being very precise 1/32” is better, and unlike trying to find half a mm, I also have 1/64” on my mechanist ruler.
@@DavidRavenMoon If you realy would understand the metric system you wouldn't have wrote the things you did...
It's just hillarious for me, as an european, to watch certain North Americans being proud of "defeating the british" but choose the imperial system as their hill to die on.
This is another great and entertaining video. It's very thoughtful of you to release this along with the start of your course. While I'm an American, and familiar with imperial and metric, this will definitely be helpful to people around the world, and also really shows that you care. Thanks!!
Steve, thanks for continuing to make great content!
One of my very favorite tools is a little ruler that is marked in decimal inch (1.1, 1.2 etc.) marks at .050 increments. I also have a fraction/decimal chart at my desk that I refer to about eight times a day.
Can I ask where you bought that, or if it has a manufacturers name, I love odd little tools and things like that are a rarity in the UK.
I love that you explain this, including what is taught in the US! Coming to the US 4 years ago I needed to find out a lot by myself and woodworking was really confusing (didn't see fractions for a long time, inches and what are feet?!) because in my personal life everything stayed in centimeters 😅 I needed to see this a couple of years ago hahaha!
There are 12 inches in a foot, that is 300mm, 3 feet in a yard, slighly less than a metre,1760 yards in a mile.
@@paulroberts7561 About which foot you are talking: International, Imperial, Survey, U.S. survey, Indian survey, Metric ?
Thank you Steve for the great and educational video.
I'm European so I've exclusively been using metric for my whole life. There are so many interesting US channels that I've had to more or less work on the conversions (thanks google). Your video adds a little bit of sense to that.
Thank you, and also it's great that you still do some longer format videos, from time to time.
I'm french and i watch you'r channel fron 9 years without understanding the mesurement, thank you very much for this vidéo !! I did not understand everything but it's on the good way to learn 👏👏
On September 3rd 1967, at exactly 5am, Sweden changed from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right. The planning had taken 40 years since it was first announced and the actual preparations 4. So it is never too late to change. Sooner or later everything on the planet will be unified. But until then I think it is charming with these quirky little oddities that each country maintains. When it comes to a full Imperial system this means the US, Liberia and I’m reading also Myanmar, which I didn’t know about. That would be 9 58th million of a thousandth barn length away from you guys. Only teasing. Interesting video!
Yeah they have a special name for that day...which I have now forgotten.
Yeah, and didn't they do it over the following week to spread the work load on moving traffic signs ???????
The UK is going back. To it's own version of the Imperial system (not fully compatible with the US version :P ). So don't count on it yet :P. People can be highly argumentative about these nonsensical things :P.
Yeah, but a measuring system is more complex. Wonder how we changed it? Was it an EU thing perhaps? There are so few references to the old system here now in Sweden now, all I can think of is the 4-inch-nail.
@@heniv181 Probably started in schools, and people weren't vindictive as you can adjust imperial measures to a metric version. Like Metric Pound (500grams) and Metric Ounce (100 gram).
The funniest part is that when you DO need super precise measurements of fractional inches, you eventually just give up and go to "mils" which is 1/1000th of an inch and let's you use decimals
And let's just add more confusion since some people say "thou" instead of "mil", but they mean the same thing, even though one looks like a reference to 1,000 and the other to 1,000,000. Thank you units for being a pain in my *ss.
And old machinists (and perhaps younger ones, too) do call them "mils" or "mills" but that can be confusing to metric users who sometimes call millimeters "mills". So I prefer to call thousandths of an inch "thous".
Yeah, I always thought that was ironic. Basically, if we need high precision, we "metricize" the inch.
There are also tenths of a thousandths of an inch...
@@XJWill1 and when we say "half", we mean a half-thousandth. A half inch is actually 500 thousandths.
That's a great explanation. I'm always converting 'an eighth' in my head to about 3mm when watching US YT content.
This was a fantastic video! Thank you for closing the gap for woodworkers all over the world!
Thank you steve
U motivated me to buy my first table saw and start woodworking this year
Buy a Griperrrr too, you won't regret it.
@@Jimc4007 Infact, the opposite; you'd regret not buying one sooner. As my right thumb can confirm.
@@dlevi67 I had a push stick that I made from plywood for quite a while but caught the Gripper on sale at a new woodworking store and regret not having it sooner.
Sorry about your thumb, hope it's is still intact .
@@Jimc4007 Thanks! It's still all there, minus quite a few nerve cells, which means my grip is a bit hit-and-miss (I don't fully know what I've got under it, or how strongly I'm gripping it). I'll get used to it - it's only been a year since the slicing. Valuable lesson on how even a new, thin blade can get hogged if moving too quick!
Thanks for sharing. Over here in the UK, we have always had metric and imperial tape measures, rulers and the like. It was only when I was working in Spain, in the 90s, that I came across metric only tape measures. Well, what a difference that made. It was often very difficult to transfer the measurement from one side of the tape to the other, which often led to inaccuracies.
However, as we still use inches and feet for timber and sheet goods, it is a lot easier to talk about 8' sheets than 2440mm, which is why we still use both.
Personally, I have several tapes, mostly metric only, but have recently become nostalgic and purchased a couple of imperial Stanley tapes.
I absolutely loved the look of your tape measure with the fractions written rather than just the different length lines. Don't suppose you could pop a link to that particular tape. I'd be awfully grateful!
For most European it’s super easy to grasp 2440 mm. We just divide by 10. 2440 mm -> 244 cm -> 2,44 meters. And yes, there are more numbers there, but that’s just because you converted from imperial to metric. If we did it the other way. Say 2 meters is 6.56167979 feet (6 feet 64 7⁄64 inches). That’s a harder to grasp than the other way around.
Hi Sir...I am from Cairo, Egypt and you just made life a lot easier. Thank you sooo much 👍👍👍
Great video! As a woodworker AND a quilter, I have to say I usually use the Metric system for my woodworking, it just makes so much sense when building from scratch. Then when I am quilting, I switch back to Imperial. One more thing, yes, we quilters do use fractions of a yard....all the time! 😀 This old lady has been watching you for a long time & SEW glad I subscribed! Keep up the great work!
Hi Steve, it's always fun to learn from your videos! How do you do pack so much information in a such a short video and not make it boring?! You're def. my favorite woodworker here on youtube
Several aren't worth watching! Steve is!
In the metric world we also guesstimate in football fields, though it's the kind of football you play with your feet. Funnily enough, those aren't a fixed size though.
I find that insane. Baseball is the same way. The pitchers mound to home plate is a specific distance, but the outfields can very a LOT. Also the fence heights are all over the place.
@@todddammit4628 In fact, there is a minimum and a maximum size for the soccer field. It was made to fit with either running tracks or bike tracks or some forgotten whatever around the field.
An interesting part of the metric world's "football field" (soccer to all of the English speaking world except the UK and to French-speaking Canadians) is that everything that matters is still in yards and feet. The goal is 8 yards by 8 feet. The center circle is 10 yards in diameter. The penalty spot is 12 yards from the goal (which is so close to 11 meters that there is no real difference). The keeper's box is 12 yards by 6 yards and the penalty area is 44 yards by 18 yards. When you look up the dimensions in metric, they're just rounded to the nearest equivalent. If you ever wondered why the goal is 7.32 by 2.44 meters, now you know - it was defined as 8 yards by 8 feet.
Though I appreciate the very few videos that sometimes use metric when explaining, most everything I've learned about woodworking I've learned from Channels like yours so it's not a problem. Great video btw 👌
Awesome ending! And great video!
Great video as always!
Interestingly most of the lumber we buy in the UK is sold in millimetres but is still actually dimensioned in Imperial. So we still buy 3/4, 1/2, 1/4 material but it's 18, 12 or 6 millimetres. We still buy 8x4 foot sheet goods but they're 2440mm x 1220mm. A two-by-four is sold as 38 x 89mm etc.
I use millimetres but tbh if you only work in inches (rather than going back and forth between inches and feet) then your experience is probably broadly similar using either system.
Where the metric system has the advantage is that it's extremely easy to move between larger and smaller units. Moving between millimetres, meters and kilometres is simply a matter of shifting the decimal point, which is dramatically easier than converting from inches to feet to yards to miles....
But in practice, if you want to cut something three feet wide you're probably actually going to measure it out as 36 inches. And if you're sticking to one unit of measurement then it doesn't really matter if that's millimetres, inches, human hairs, football fields, pieces of string...;)
It is not only in England that measuring on construction wood is like that. This is also the case in the EU, you know, the club you unfortunately do not want to be a part of. 😉 Sorry, I'm just kidding😂
American here... I used to struggle with metric measurements until I seriously got into 3D printing. Now it's to the point where I swap between the two measurement systems depending on what I'm doing.
If I'm measuring something small or something I have to be very precise with, I use metric. If I'm working on something bigger such as a cabinet/furniture piece, then I usually use Imperial, unless I have to get whatever I'm making in a very tight spot.
My lessons learned is that measurement systems are just another tool, which each have their own advantages/disadvantages depending on what you're trying to use them with.
What is the struggle?
1 penny times ten is one dime
1 dime times ten is one dollar.
1 millimetre times ten is one centimetre
1 centimetre time ten is one meter
13/16in + 12 1/4 inches + 3 ft 7/32 inches +.....is a struggle. Even calculator entry must be in base 10 (decimal) format.
Measure, calculate, and cut in metric. Imperial units and fractions are as obsolete as the cubit in the 21st century digital age.
10 fingers and 10 toes. natural units and multiplier. Not the length of the king's big toe or three kernels of corn end to end.
Could you give me an example of something that's seriously much easier in imperial measurements? I always hear about these silly things like: dividing by 2 is so much easier, you just double the denominator. It's pretty easy, yes, but it's not like it's hard to divide 10 by 2. Dividing 185 by 5.2 is just as hard as dividing 3 23/32 by 5 2/64. Metric is just a lot easier to enter into a calculator (I know that fractions aren't inherent to imperial, and decimal numbers aren't inherent to metric, but that's just how people use it). I honestly can't think of 1 thing that's seriously easier. Probably since I never use imperial though.
@@timderks5960 I'm not sure if "easier" is the right term exactly. Metric, I will agree, is far easier to measure in as you "this is exactly 437.7cm long."
But say you're working on home improvement stuff such as plumbing, framing, or even furniture. Building codes in the US are measured in feet and inches, pipe sizes in inches, and even most furniture dimensions still. If I'm measuring something that's already been laid out in inches (such as 16-inch centers for wall-studs) he using dimensional lumber that's also been milled in inches, then I'm going to stick with measuring in inches.
@@timderks5960 That's just it, though. WIth imperial, you're not as beholden to a calculator. And fractions are much easier to calculate on paper (or, more often, on the piece of wood you're working with) or in your head when the resulting precision is known (for instance, you can dispense with a lot of calculations if your smallest unit is a millimeter or 1/16th of an inch). Although I wouldn't call your example fair. No one is dividing anything by 5 and some change. It's unusual enough to divide by 3, and only then if you're really trying to build to the material on hand (say, getting three stool legs out of a length of lumber).
All that being said, I wish the US would finally realize that we've been metric for decades. We just won't admit it.
@@motorcyclingsassav7217 That part I understand. If the world around you uses X, you're almost forced to use X too. I'm just wondering, since you said each measurement system has its own advantages, what exactly are the advantages of imperial, other than the fact that the world around you uses it?
Steve, I always enjoy your videos, for the laughs and the woodworking. And now I’m seriously thinking about revamping my garage/shop to a more usable space. (what did I do with that screwdriver...?).
As an aerospace design engineer I have to deal with both. Even on metric airbuses, there are still imperial fasteners to spoil the pot
wasn’t there a catastrophic failure of one of the NASA missions because they didn’t use the same unit?
@@eaststorm1282 September 1999, Mars Climate Orbiter!
@@eaststorm1282 - That was such a rare failure that people who want to make something of it have to cite it over and over. NASA actually has an excellent record of success in unmanned space missions.
I live in Mexico, and while we almost exclusively use the metric system for everything, many of our tools and products are imported from the U.S. so we have to understand the imperial system as well. Converting from Imperial to Metric is very easy, converting from Metric to Imperial is a huge hassle.
Fantastic points, Steve!
Thanks, Steve. This is really my only go to woodworking channel; despite the weird wall art in the background.
Thank you, Steve. I've been in the corrugated industry for more than 30 years and there are quite a few new workers that cannot even read a tape measure. It is one of the major hurdles to hiring.
I'm guessing that the corrugated industry has it's ups and downs, right?🙄
We Canadians have a solid mixture of imperial and metric. It really depends on what's being measured or counted that determines which we use. Double-unit tape measures are a must have.
Except the units you want to use are always on the opposite side of the tape.
Thanks Steve, very useful.👍🏽🙏🏻
As a Canadian a recommend you buy a digital caliper , It will measure in inches or metric cheap one will do. Machinist have some nice tools for some woodworking (eg. 1,2,3 blocks )
And there is a bonus for using some machinist's tools in woodworking: us woodworkers can usually use the cheap versions of the machinist's tools. 1-2-3 blocks come to mind: the cheap ones are likely NOT accurate enough for serious machinists but generally will be accurate enough for wood working. The set I have was about $20 and I'm sure would be laughed at by any serious machinist but for me, they work just fine for my fairly small scale projects.
I personally have switched over to metric as well (mostly) especially in sewing. It's just makes things so, much, easier.
The thing that really sucks for us metric users, Steve, is that plans written in imperial measurements are usually designed around goods sold in imperial measurements. For example, a recent plan I worked with called for an 8'x4' piece of plywood... but if I go down to my local big green shed hardware store in Australia, I've got a 2400x1200mm sheet of ply which roughly equates to 7.8' by 3.9'... meaning that usually I'm up for extra cutting than my imperial following brethren who can just buy dimensional lumber/timber off the rack. Even framing timber, a metric 90x45 you would pick up in a metric country is a different size to its equivalent 2x4 you would get in the US.
As a resident of the U.S. I was born into imperial but I did try the duel tape measure once. It wasn't long before I got confused and got rid of it! If your used to one use it and find the conversion when you need it. I loved the ending with the 2x4!
Thanks for that. Loved the ending! 😛
Ease of use is relative from person to another. What I might consider easier might be considered difficult for another. Myself I can't imagine lengths of things in inches. Its just how we grew up.
Nah, it's possible to find out what's objectively easier. Doesn't matter what some people might find easier in their life, the same way it's easy to see that solving a triple integral is harder than 2+2, you can determine what's the easiest measuring system.
@@brianpso Agreed. My brain is just better at estimating in imperial because of life experience, not because it's a better measuring system. Logically, I know metric is better because converting is just a power of 10, or in other words, the moving of a decimal point.
I'm English and many of us still use imperial measurements, but it is handy to be able to juggle with both. Being old school though, feet, inches, yards and in particular pints come to mind first :-)
I just use whichever is the roundest number on the tape measure! It's so handy having both metric and imperial
LOL... We can agree that pints are my favorite measurement too... I'll buy the first round! Cheers!
Me too, its a damm sight easier in Metric for measurements in wood working and we all converted a long while ago, managing with a weird hybrid system like most of us in the UK , but when you have used them, you realise just how much time you waste working with fractions of an inch.
By the way, the English pint is larger than the French "pinte" which is larger than the US one. Anyway, after a couple, you do not care about the missing sips.
US or UK pint? 😉 (473ml v 568ml)
I'm grateful for being bilingual in metric/imperial but always feel a bit short changed if I order a pint of beer in the US!
Its pretty cool to woodwork in the states. I used both SAE and metric. I learned most of the metric system in the military. Both systems have their purpose.
We encourage everyone to learn more than one language. Its a great idea to know both measuring systems.
Thanks Steve! I have used google a lot through the last years but in this subject. I have never managed to understand the system. This video really helped me sort things out. Here in Sweden I have not learned about feet and inch in school (maybe I have but since we dont use it I have forgot it) Its really confusing sometimes when I see " and/or ' on an drawing. Maybe I now remember which is feet and which is inches...
Plans (say for a house) here are typically in millimeters - only, as that's generally precise enough for a building.
No decimals, no risk of smudging adding or removing what is/gets interpreted as a decimal point/comma, or should have been....
Of course a 2x4 or 2x6 is still in casual talk, while they're actually 45x95 and 45x145 mm respectively... (25 mm per inch, minus 5 mm for planing)
That's funny. Here in Metric-land (Norway) a 2x4" is actually 48x98 mm, 2x6" is 48x148 mm etc. Maybe even more interesting: we also call it a two-by-four (we say two-four, two-two, etc) even though we're through-and-through metric...
I'm an Aussie and we formally switched from imperial to metric in the early 70s, while I was still at school/university and as a result I find it easy to work in both but mainly metric but some things are a bit weird like television sizes are measured in inches and some timber is still referred to as 4 by 2 and feeler gauges often mention thousandths of an inch but most things now are metric. All my woodwork measuring equipment has both and I will always buy with that in mind but won't be upset if it only has metric. One UA-cam video included adding up 4 pieces of stock, all with fractional, imperial measurements and boy was I glad that we changed to metric and I have a background in mathematics/statistics so adding fractions is not difficult for me but very tedious.
Here in Holland lumber is also sold in imperial. 2100mm = 7'
44x94mm = 2by4 (center-center between blades at the sawmill)
Plywood 1220x2440mm = 4x8'
I’m glad the old intro and outro music is back!
Tiny nitpick: feet and inches are not indicated by apostrophes and quote marks, but rather by single prime and double prime marks, respectively. When typing at a computer, prime and double prime are actually what we use as apostrophes (aka single quotes) or double quotes, however some operating systems have a "smart quotes" feature (you can see the one I'm using does not) which will magically convert them for you to typographically correct single or double quotes (including whether they should be opening or closing).
Okay, enough from me. Typography nerd signing out.
Don't sell yourself short. OCD has its place, or should I say CDO, alphabetically, AS IT SHOULD BE! 😝
I'd in fact be happy to switch the correct nomenclature (which I immediately realise is probably the wrong word)... Symbology? Whatever. Just show me how to do that on my phone in under 48 keyboard shortcuts.
🙂
Ha! I said the same thing.
The power of fractions is (paradoxically) that an uneducated laborer could do calculations in their head more accurately. The "splitting in halves" makes it easier to visualize.
I switched to completely metric at home a few years ago and it drastically cut down on mistakes and increased precision. I also noticed that many machine shops are using metric now, and datasheets are metric with optional imperial instead of the other way around. The time is coming...
i have the complete opposite story for educating my gf. we live in Australia where we use the metric system.
The difficulty is some people are terrible at visualizing length and area and volume. so I taught my gf to use foot and inches, because they are nice references to normal human body parts. a foot is roughly the length of a foot and an inch is roughly the width of her thumb at the base. a bit of a stretch of course, and its certainly not accurate but it helps a conversation going when nobody cares about, say the exact length of a dog, or how close somebody parked behind her car.
@@andersenzheng The entire Imperial system was intended to be easy to visualized. Metric is entirely arbitrary.
Europeans: Joooiinnn uussss
That ending was SPOT ON! LOL
The end of the video is fantastic! You had me laughing really hard!
Honestly I would switch over to Metric in a heart beat if the tools were available here. Its hard to fine anything in the states that has Metric, and what you do find is imported and marked up crazy high. Imperial is so dumb.
IPS is definitely dumber and more arbitrary than SI units, but you’re absolutely right. It’s not that bad once you get used to it.
The main thing that grinds MY gears? Mixing unit systems within a project. Inches? Good, I can visualize that. Meters? Great, base 10 is easy. Both? Get out of here, 1980s-era General Motors!
My car gets 40 kilometers to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it!
@@ailivac you’re a monster.
It's not particularly arbitrary, it's just not designed for science, but rather for trades. A metre as an example was designed to be 1 ten millionth of the distance between the Equator and the North Pole. A handy fact to be sure, but not particularly useful. A yard on the other hand is designed to be from the center of your chest to the middle of your outstretched hand. So if you're buying cloth, you simply grab it at both ends and stretch your arms for 2 yards. Some fabric stores will still sell it that way.
A foot is the length of a foot. An inch is the width of a thumb. For scientific accuracy, this sucks for obvious reasons, but if someone wants a six foot tabletop 2 inches thick, when I deliver it, they don't need to break out the tape. They can pace it and thumb it and know that it's close.
Volume and weight in IPS are similar. A gallon is 1/8 of a cubic foot. A pound is the weight of 1/8 of a gallon. So estimation is trivial for trade and barter. Where Imperial goes off the rails though is during standardization. There wasn't someone sitting down standardizing these measurements, rather just a bunch of piecemeal decrees, so things began to drift. A gallon of water actually weighs over 8 lbs as an example and a cubic foot of water is slightly less than 64 lbs, but the estimability still exists since the percentage they differ is relatively small.
@@lawrencedeleurere4427 The anomaly is the humble gallon. The UK gallon is 8 UK pints and weighs 10lb, but the US gallon is only 6.6 UK pints. I wonder how that came about?
@@paulsouth3926 Oddly enough, because of the metric system. US gallons are based on the 8 lb relationship. In the 1820s though, those Brits, ever wanting to compete with their continental neighbors decided to redesign the gallon to be the volume occupied by 10 lbs of water. We Americans were not taken in by such French silliness and maintained our 8 lb gallon just as God and Queen Anne intended. :)
I found the Fraction Calculator app (Android) and it's helped immensely. I use it all the time in the shop
Very enlightening!
Idk, metric to me seems so much simpler, i cannot imagine working with imperial. Best solution i've found to this day, is i bought a measure tape that shows both systems. And that's the closest i'll get to using imperial.
1/16 in is over 1.5mm. I'd say that's pretty inaccurate for woodworking, and you might end up with visible gaps if you are off by a 16th. I'd always say: go as precise as you can handle. I tend to use half millimeters, which is still very doable. I sometimes even nudge the line a bit to either side to get roughly 1 or 3 quarters of a mm, but that's more of a perfectionist thing than actually being helpful.
There is even a 32nds on most tape measures, so you can get finer measurements in Imperial measuring. Some specialized rulers even go to 64ths for super-fine measurements.
So if 1/16th is too much of a gap (1.5mm), go with 1/32nd, which will be less than a millimeter.
@@philhatfield2282 That is irrelevant, there are tools to measure nanometers too. I was simply referring to Steve mentioning that 1/16th of an inch was precise enough in woodworking, which it isn't in my opinion.
I was taught a long time ago that if you needed to be accurate to, for example, 1/16 then you needed to measure to 1/32.
As well, 1/16 might be ok but tolerances stack. Sometimes in your favor, sometimes not.
Scale of your project matters for this also.
But when working with a 1/16 scale, that doesn’t mean that you necessarily have an error interval of +- 1/32. A project can be designed on a 1/16 scale and built with care to fit precisely. I designed a pantry cabinet to be built from 3/4” plywood and I think I used a 1/4” scale. I don’t have any gaps anywhere.
Great video Steve.
Thanks Steve!
I used mixed energy and power units through my engineering career. Watts, inches, deg C, etc. Then a different set of units at a different job. You get used to it. Overall, I think the metric system makes more sense.
Metric system is translatable to other measurements , liters , volumes. etc
Making people do thermodynamics in imperial units sucks so much.
I like inches and feet for building stuff but that's basically the only unit I can get behind
All science is metric around the world for decades to centuries.
@@AndyProkopykChapmanStick My favourite imperial unit mess in thermodynamics has to be "BTU per horsepower hour", you find it when dealing with heat pumps because units of thermal and shaft energy are unrelated. If you're working in SI, it becomes a dimensionless coefficient.
@@MrBonners engineering and science are not the same thing. I was in the last class at my engineering school that had to do thermodynamics calculations in imperial units. Which is annoying because they don't quite represent the same thing but are used to measure the same phenomenon. BTU vs Joule specifically.
Great video, Steve - I love your sense of humour (yes, that's how we spell it). As a Canadian I know all about the superiority of the metric system, so I drive in kilometres per hour, get my gas by the litre (yes, that's how we spell it) and buy my food by the gram or kilogram. Of course, I still measure my height in feet and inches inches and my weight in pounds, and I do almost all of my wood working in inches. We are nothing if not adaptable!
I'm sure I'm never gonna need those freedom units, but thank you for explaining them!
Should be: "freedom" units but I stll love that reference :D
You are rad! I have been looking for resources that will help me teach my 7th and 8th graders the INCH.
I am a European living in the US. And while I got used to the imperial measurements, both professionally and in my woodworking hobby, I still hate them with a vengeance. The imperial system has no good properties besides being what is currenlty in use.
I've been debating buying my tools in metric...
I agree. Imperial units are outdated. It’s just pointless stubbornness to keep it.
I use both in woodworking but I would entirely switch to metric is table saws and other tools used metric
I've just been reading up on some of the old units of measurement. Did you know that there was a unit of mass called a batman? Or that in Wales you would buy a 'hobbit' of grain?
In Australia (but I suppose in England as well, given our history) the measurements that got me were Rods, Poles and Perches, which were some form of unit of area used to sell real estate as recently as the early 1970's. I vaguely remembering what those translated to from school, but fortunately we've moved on from that these days.
@@Meriphistimo I remember hearing Grandpa say "It was about 4 rods from the gate." I have no idea how long a rod is. I do have a small reference manual, that I know has those conversions in it. How about, how much was a "hogshead?"
@@jimkemerly6636 your post nudged me into Googling rods poles and perches, and I've come away even more confused than ever - there are a morass of different types of measurements all overlapping each other and with different origins - like the length of a pike (spear thing carried by a soldier).
After rummaging around though, I think a rod ends up being 16 1/2 feet, or four of them being 66 feet. That sound right to you?
And while I was at it, it turns out a hogshead is container (a wooden barrel) whose size varies wildly depending on what you put in it. When used for alcohol, very very roughly it contains about 65 US gallons - so I visualise it as somewhat bigger than a 44 gallon drum.
My new favourite anachronistic term I came across is the "Hide", a measure of land area that just wonderfully demonstrates how confused the old measurements were. Quoting from one web site that came up:
"A hide was enough land to support a house-hold, usually between 60-120 acres (24-48 hectares). A hide of good land was smaller than that of poor quality. Hides are used in the Doomsday Book. However, I have a reference of a hide as 100 acres.
A correspondent wrote: An oxgang was viking measure used in the Doomsday Book, and was the area of land that an ox could plough in one season. Since oxen were usually used in teams of eight, the area that eight ox could plough was called a bovate, or carucate. So an oxgang was about 15 acres, and a bovate was 100-120. Just to make it more awkward, parts if England not under Danelaw used the virgate, which was twice the size of an oxgang (because you used two ox instead of one), and a carucate was then known as a Hide."
Just wonderful stuff!
LOL. Love your sense of humor, and that is great info. I also have a tape measure that has numbers on the 16th. I have gotten in the habit to just convert to 16 and then do the math, and then convert back. Too bad you didn’t discuss hand measuring units…. 😀
I'm really glad to be French! I love your work even if I'm getting lost most of time when you speak about your measurements!!
If you need to deal with fractions and have a cell phone there’s an app for that. I have a fraction calculator on my phone that I use a lot when wood working.
I... never thought of that. Just downloaded one to my phone just now. Thanks for the tip!
Why? measure in metric and cut in metric. no fractions to deal with.
It’s a cultural thing. Just like the side of the road you drive on or voltage going in your home. We’ve done it for so long that it works for us. It’s not best or worst just the way we do it.
I love the metric system and as a science teacher, I am very comfortable with doing conversions for woodworking, but I find that I simply cannot visualize metric measurements in my head. Like, when I am done in Sketchup and I read the dimensions, I can’t picture how long 48 cm is on the space in front of me. It’s like speaking two languages; I construct the thoughts in my native langue first, then translate it. I can’t conceptualize in the second language.
I had the same problem until I started thinking in terms of meters. I know a meter is roughly 3 feet so I can easily picture a meter. And 48 cementers = 0.48 meters, so about half a meter. I can picture that in my head. At first I would have to convert back to a rough imperial estimate (0.5m ≈ 0.5 yard = 1.5 ft = 18in)* but after a while I just visualized things in meters.
* Note: A meter is actually 3.37 inches longer than a yard. So for the estimate of 48cm I would think to myself 48cm ≈ 0.5m ≈ 0.5yd (+ 1/2 of 3in) ≈1.5ft (+1.5 in) ≈ 18in + 1.5in ≈ 19.5. But the original number was 48 cm not 50 cm so take off half an inch and that gives you 19 inches. The actually conversion of 48cm = 18.898 inches so 19 inches isn't a bad estimate for just visualizing sizes.
As a metric native, it's the same case with us. I heard someone saying they imagine the length of a food in feet, but it's still difficult for me :P
A tip I can think of right now, is that we had this 30cm ruler made of bamboo back in elementary school.
It's actually convenient, at least to me, to know the length of 30cm. It's like the sweet spot of the lengths of small sized everyday objects.
If you can get a folding rule in metric that would help develop your visualisation, because you can just leave it next to the computer and pick it up any time you want to see how big something is.
I apologize for being wordy. I am a UA-cam fan of yours. I am writing this to several presenters.
About 60 years ago, I took high school woodshop. Thereafter, I learned a few basic things from my grandfather and father. Over the following 20+ years, I had neither the money nor the space to do any woodworking. About 25 years ago, some tools were passed on to my by parents, so I took over my garage, but my skill was rudimentary; the things I created were crude and imprecise, but I enjoyed the process.
About 5 years ago, I got very sick. During my recovery, I discovered you and your colleagues on UA-cam. Since then, I have been a junky watching mostly woodworking videos. I must THANK YOU and your colleagues for teaching me so very much. I moved to a new home and created a shop on casters (I have to move cars) and have tried many of the things YOU have taught me-and bought way too many new tools!.
I now spend as much time as possible in my shop and have actually created some pretty good project products and shop furniture. Without you to help me through my convalescence and your clearly understandable videos, I don’t think I would be enjoying this hobby as I do. Thank you and the whole UA-cam woodworking community.
We use both systems in mechanics here. So on my truck which is a 2007 everything I have ever touched has needed a metric socket or wrench. I work on locomotives, granted most are old my late model was built in 1984. Everything is in Imperial/Standard. Even add on electrical system produced in countries that use metric, ie Canada and Mexico, will have Imperial size mounting and cover bolts.
Being from the UK and born in the 80s we learnt both systems for everything, so we just switch depending on which side the tape measure is on! :D ... but since doing wood work it is easier to quickly plan big things, like you know the 4 part of a 2-4 is 2 x 2-2 wide etc but thats just down to how wood is done
I work with both imperial and metric, depending on the project. The thing I find most useful about imperial is the ease of dividing a foot in to quarters or thirds without dropping in to decimals.
My grandma was from Belgium and she always counted with one hand to twelve by placing the thumb on the bone of each finger. By keeping track with the other hand she could count to sixty (5 times 12). This is the way many people counted for millennia and probably the reason for the 60 minutes in an hour and the 12 hours for the day and the 12 hours for the night that the Babylonians came up with. So, thinking in twelves used to be much more natural for most people. Plus, it's really handy so I taught my kids as well to count this way. You may find it interesting to note that in everyday German language and life there's still many references to inches, e.g. a folding rule is usually called "Zollstock" ("inch stick") or many plumbing items are measured in inches or fractions or you by stuff "en gros" i.e 12x12=144 when you buy in large amounts. And it's very common to talk of a dozen or dozens of something instead of ten or twenty or thirty. So, the old system is still very much ingrained here as well. I'm a chemist by trade, so I really use the hell out of the metric system and the SI system for units. But I would also like to point out that dividing the circumference of the Earth by 40,000 to get the meter is not the first thing that comes to the mind of most people to use as the new basis for measuring things. Yet here we are. Another thing I would like to point out is that inches (width of a thumb) and feet (length of a foot, duh) come natural to most people. What I am saying is, there are merits to both systems which is why I never got why people get so upset about one or the other. Myself, I have watched so many woodworking videos that I can do imperial now, so that's nice. Anyways, sorry for the long rant and thanks for the great video!
The feet and inches explanation was excellent, BUT mental arithmetc as you illustrated can be challenging.
Having been educated in the 1950s with Imperial (and UK money with a 12/20 unit basis until 1971) the transition to decimal currency and metric measurement was a blessed relief - you should try it ;-)
The 10 hour clock idea appeals! - but what about the confusion with the date format mm/dd/yy in the US (and a few other parts of the world) compared with dd/mm/yy as being in use for most of the world - confusion comes when 11-2-22 could the eleventh day of February or the second day of November. The internet has a lot to answer for!
Very funny ending. Good video.
The thing about "Imperial measures" is, most metric people can adjust to them, but not the other way around. I always found it weird how Americans struggle with it. A good example is the show "The Orville". They are in metric but since they have no idea of scale they simply say the weirdest things :P.
Otherwise most Metric people know how much 2.54 (rough an inch in cm)_ is and how much a foot is.. or a mile. Yet if you tell an average American "50 mm" they will give you anywhere between a foot length till 1/4th of an inch :P.
It's not to laugh at it, but I think it is a precision thing. Metric can be adjust up and down to match the measurement needed. So, it's easy to find the scale that fits and then get an estimate of how big something is. The other way around not so much. 1 cm about 0.4 inch. A Kilometer? Why about 0.62 miles. Etc. It just doesn't fit as well the other way around.
One can notice this both ways with temperature, as there both sides can't adjust well due the nature of the scale involved.
BTW: Science , Soda bottles and most Engineering companies also use it. this is to safe time with ordering and delivering internationally. :P. If you're Ford Motor Company, and you need to order some part from Germany or Canada, you want it to fit and vice versa :P.
Also: 540inches of driveway is also easier for the metric folk. They just move a few 0's around and then multiply it with 2.5. To get the meters and from there they already have an idea about how long it is (about 13.5 meters) and if they want to explain the multiply it y 3.3 (times 3 + 10%) to get an about number in feet (44 :) ).
So while it is an estimate, they can still convert due to how their system adjusts to different sizes. It's quite intriguing. Now if I tell most Americans "1350 CM" they have No idea what so ever.
Again a good example of this issue is the temperature scale, were both sides of the argument are totally lost as there is no linear relation between the two scales. There is no easy way to convert either way nor a simple multiplication you can do by head for either. But for length, the problem of conversion is pretty one sided, sadly enough :( .
Also: LOL at the 2 by 4 joke. I found that one hilarious :P. As a kid that one always confused me :P.
Offcourse they can't. We all know the ones in usa can't count to 10
Two remarks: 1) 1" is _exactly_ 2.54 cm. It's defined as such (well, actually as 0.0254 m, but powers of 10 aside) since 1959 in the US.
2) I think the issue with temperature isn't so much that the relationship isn't linear (it actually is) - it's the offset of having 0 = 32 (or 0 = -17.777... if you prefer) that screws things up. FWIW, I find that taking away 30 and dividing by 2 and adding 10% (or multiply by 2, remove 10% and add 30) works quickly enough, but it's definitely not the easiest conversion. Just like sqft -> m^2 is easily done by dividing by 10 and then taking away another 10%.
@@dlevi67
Point 1: Thanks for the clarification :).
Point 2: Oh the problem with temperature is that you can't just easily do it by head. I do the same thing: Take away 30 and divide by 2 and adding 10%. However that isn't an easy thing to do for everybody in their heads ;).
My point was: There you see both sides struggling. Were as with other units of length you don't. Most Metric people easily convert to approximations of inches. 2.54 is indeed the precise one, but 2.5 for inch, 30 for feet, 90 for yards and 1.6 for miles works very well in metric.
If you tell a metric person "10 miles" most of them will go "OH, 16 kilometers got it". There are some countries where their mile is 10 kilometers but that is an outlier.
Many also already know ounce and pound. They have a metric version of 100gram and 500 gram. So they usually just use that as a conversion and usually it's close enough for most to make an estimate.
With temperature? Yeah... not so much :P.
@@janee7995 No, it's not a problem of intelligence. The problem is that one system is compatible with the other but not the other way around. The Metric System is perfectly compatible with the US measurement system.
As it just scales to the precision needed to find a way to fit it in whole numbers. From there you can make an easy "rule of thumb" for conversion. Most people in metric countries also do that when watching US movies.
The other way around is not as easy.
@@DehnusNorder I see what you mean. My mathematical brain just went "Not linear? Of course it's linear - the slope is 1.8 and the intercept is 32" 😁
Dear Steve, As you know, all imperial measures are officially defined in metric. The decimal system is easier to work with in every way I can think of, across the board be it lengths, volumes, or squares. Adding, subtracting, dividing or multiplying in the decimal system is foolproof. In the odd case you MUST use IMPERIAL: Measure in imperial then calculate and cut etc. using imperial. If you have a choice: measure calculate & fabricate in metric. When working in 'mixed environments' make a firm choice and stick to it. Mix'n Match doesn't work!
Mix'n Match is a great way to blow up a spacerocket
"Mix and match doesn't work." Right. Wasn't there a NASA (unmanned) spacecraft that was lost because of a conversion error?
" imperial measures are officially defined in metric " no such official statement exists.
An inch was the length of the king's big toe or 3 kernels of corn laid end to end.
The original meter is 1/10 millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator.
There are just conversion factors, they are not formal or official definitions.
I am confused by this. Both systems work in decimals. When using imperial, I often see people indicate .25 inches, etc
@@tree_carcass_mangler Yes, I can't recall exactly how it went, but there was some stupid disaster. IIRC it was actually that conversion wasn't done at all, but figure was assumed to be converted. There was also some flight disaster/close call where fuel was calculated in wrong units, which obviously lead to problems.
I grew up in Australia in the 60's which was when we went metric across the board. Yes, it was hard for the older people to get used to.
The fascinating thing is that it was in the early 70's that our timber industry went metric (forced to, mind you). I was working for a sawmill at the time and being the youngest guy in the office, I got the job of handling and explaining.
What I find really fascinating is that we went metric - by cutting timber lengths in multiples of 300mm (yes, feet!), timber thicknesses in multiples of 25mm (yes, inches!)
That outro was spot on😆
Metric for furniture, Imperial for houses. It's just another tool on your tool-belt
It also depends if the timber is regularised or not, it might be called 4x2 but will be smaller after it’s been machined.
I work in a timber yard in the U.K. we use both imperial and metric at the same time.
We might say a 1 8 ( meaning 1.8m) by 4 x 2.
I can readily convert between both systems but find the imperial measurements some times easier to see on the tape measure.
We still use the statute mile for distance and the pint for beer.
I measure all my woodworking projects in hands, like horse heights.
Regarding fractions, I HIGHLY recommend getting a fractional calculator app for your smartphone. There are dozens and they all convert between fractions and decimals. They're most handy when you need to divide a mixed number in half. For example, you might be building a custom shelf to fit an existing space in your house and need to determine the center point for a support piece - - quick! what's half of 27 3⁄4" ? - - you can whip out the pen and paper to figure this out long hand, or just punch it up in a fractional calculator, mark down 13 7⁄8 and keep moving on your project.
"The only challenge in dealing with fractions is if you need to add or subtract them, thankfully this isn't something that comes up very often when building things."
Wut? Every single thing I've ever built I've had to add and subtract fractions of an inch. This is the primary reason the metric system is better.
Hilarious ending.
Twitter = Dumpster Fire 😆
Thank you for the laugh Steve, I really needed it!
😂
You have a very good explanation, Steve, and I understand that is difficult to change that in the near future. What I find funny, though, is that people using the imperial system gets confused when trying to convert the imperial measurements and they get something like 40.3945 centimeters. No one makes tables with those measurements. You make 200cm long, or 160cm long tables, 80-100 cm wide. That's it :) Easy to divide, easy to sum or extract. It's not a war here, everyone can use whatever system he/she thinks gives them more benefits, whether in accuracy or easy calculation. But you are right, since the humongous market of tools in US is so imperial system dependent.. yea, it's a challenge.
I absolutely lo w watching your videos. I am a brand spanking new aspiring woodworker, and you have explained so much to me already, but I do have a question (well, many, but I'll stick to one for now). In a few of the videos I see you transfer an image from paper onto wood. Can you do, or have you all ready done, a video on how to do that?
Always amazes me that Americans never got rid of British Imperial measurements when you got rid of everything else we brought over. Even the name “Imperial” must have grated on those that fought for independence.
Got rid? What about the language? The basis of American legislation is English common law? Tune for their national anthem?
At the time, it was what was around. It wasn't until the French started lopping the head off of political enemies that the Metric System came about.
British Imperial was not introduced until half a century after US independence. We kept English measures because we continued to trade with Britain and its dominions. The revolution was not about units.
@@charliehorse1967not quite. The metric system was launched at the early stage of the revolution by scientists from the nobility like Lavoisier, while the king was still alive.
Also it's a new one, the Americans rejected the metric system because of the French "bloody" revolution? At the heights of terror there were like 2500 persons who were killed after trial.
I mean Hiroshima and Nagasaki should have compelled the US to ditch the imperial system if you were that sensitive...
The reason you are stuck with the imperial system is because you are imperialist and extremely proud. You love leaving your print everywhere on the planet or even your flag on the moon... but do not accept reciprocity.
This other idea that it is because the imperial system is too culturally important or that it would cost money is blabla. Every country (including France who first introduced the metric system) had to ditch its old system. Do you think China was not sentimentally attached to its former system? Or that it did not cost money to Australia to do the switch in the 1970s?
Let's be serious.