Imperial or Metric? Why I Chose Metric.

People see all the increments and get put off. In metric by international agreement preferred units of measure were selected. System International, SI. deci and Deca units are not used and cm in a few industry sectors. For woodworking to building construction It is Metres and millimetres. Furniture use centimetres in sales material but it is built off drawings and CAD in millimeters. Metric is calculator/computer/CAD friendly, material take off, estimating and other logistics type support is far easier across the board and aspects of the trades working on site together in metric improves, Drawings are not cluttered up with fraction chicken scratches after whole numbers.
FYI : Capitalized prefix means greater than a Meter and lower case prefix means less then a meter for the first instant indication of scale to think of on initial read of a drawing. jump on setting the mind scale reference. Supposed to be part of some CAD standard but often not followed. eg. Km, cm. and SI does not use Deca (x10)and deci (x0.01) . You don't count your money by how many $10 bills or how many dimes you have.

The next time someone talks about how imperial units are better due to 12 being more divisible than 10, ask them what thirteen shillings plus ten farthings is. The answer is exactly 317 halfpennies, or 317/480ths of a Pound Sterling. Isn't that so much easier than decimal currencies? 🤣🤣🤣

Great topic. Not an easy discussion. Very well explain though.
Glad you mentioned cm and meters. Talking in mm only is like buying with Pennie’s only.
Europe use to measure in foot and thumbs many year ago as well.

if woodpeckers had a trade in program or I knew someone with a ton of disposable income, I would switch to metric in a second.😊I have way too many squares , rulers, etc. the older I get the more I appreciate metric…well except for celsius

Metric system is superior is every way. Its just stubborness by the Americans. The English are even worse because they use both at the same time depending on what you are doing. For example, the butcher, petrol station, the road signs, a persons weight and anything to do with cars. Every example uses each system. There is no unison.

What a bunch of gutless, spineless, ball-less politicians we have in the the USA in not following through in converting the US to metric! This is a tip of the iceburg of the many problems we have in the US.

What a bunch of gutless, spineless, ball-less politicians we have in the the USA in not following through in converting the US to metric! This is a tip of the iceburg of the many problems we have in the US.

So it's 2344mm to his ceiling - now halve that! Do it in inches and it is so much quicker.

I'll stick with Imperial!

Having worked in the machining field, I automatically convert fractions to decimals!!

The metric system is sooo much easier to use..😌

When I came to the states as a 10 year-old I broke my brain switching to from metric to imperial. Now as a 48 year-old I'm braking my brain switching back to metric. 🤣

Good times 😂

In Mexico, all flexometers have cm and inches. Rulers also.

I use imperial only because I live in Canada and we mainly use imperial for measuring length. MEtric is so much better, unfortunately we don't use it so I am not as familiar with it. It's amazing and convenient how things like 1000cm^3 = 1L, you can't do that in imperial, metric just makes so much sense.

I wish woodworkers used metric, 😅it's so much easier

The US uses metric, in ways I don't think they realize! How many pennies in a dime? How many dimes in a dollar? Australia transitioned over in 1965, never looked back. I'm 51, was raised to understand both, as my parents grew up with Imperial.

Stairs. Much easier in metric.

By us in Europe is inches used only for some weapon ammunition (express in decimal system; 0.22, 0.38, 0.45, .308, .50, ..), car tires and TV screens ...

I prefer the Furlong-Firkin-Fortnight system.

All our tapes and rulers are metric/imperial in the U.K. assumed they were the same everywhere. Millions of our houses are Victorian which have been built in imperial. We still use both.

Now all you have to do is spell it Metre or Litre.

You don't have problems with the metric system! Money is metric:

1 cent = 1 centimeter
1 thousand = 1 kilometer
(Kilo is 1000 in ancient greek)

I choose the path of the machinist: convert fractions to decimals.

I choose chaos.

1m=100cm=1000mm . So 2.344m (2 meters 34 centimetres and 4 millimeters) is 234.4cm (234 centimeters and 4 millimeters) or 2344mm.
1Km=1000m=10.000cm=100.000mm
So ex. mount Everest is 8.849 Km that is 8 Kilometers(8 thousand meters) and 849 meters
Nasa use metric Space X use metric, the whole world use metric. Ιt is serial, logical, super easy.

Even the SEC ordered all US stock exchanges to abandon fractions and switch to decimals in April 2001.

You’re missing the point. And that point is; don’t convert just use the metric system. It is more accurate, easier to use, particularly by computers, more expandable. Furthermore you already use it all the time in the USA. As you’ve already mentioned your currency is metric; Jefferson got that right, When was the last time your doctor prescribed 1/64th of an ounce of statins and gave you a 32nd of a fluid ounce of a flu shot. You use terra, giga and mega bytes every day. I was brought up with Fahrenheit in the U.K. but whilst I know that 32 degrees is freezing but I have no idea what boiling is. Water is only a liquid between freezing and boiling. I’ve got a great idea let’s call freezing zero, boiling 100 and the job is done. What about volume? Let’s make a 10cm box and call that a litre. A nice amount. What about weight. Well let’s weigh a litre of water and hey presto we have a kilogram. Then we can divide it or multiply it by just moving the decimal point and can have anything from a picogram to a tera-tonne. Everything can be derived from that magic metre rule; length, weight and temperature. But what if we lost the original metre rule kept by those French chaps and ladies in the Pavillon de Breteuil? Easy, we just measure the quadrant arc of the meridian from the equator to the North Pole, divide it by ten million and there’s your metre. Multiply the metre by a thousand and there’s a kilometre, ideal for the US Army to measure the distance to their targets, a click is a kilometre, for firing their 155mm shells. Oh, they already do! And when Team USA train for the Olympic Games they are running the 400 metres relay and trying to beat Lasha Talakhadze’s 223 kilogram snatch record. When Lance Armstrong had milligrams of EPO pumped into his body and whizzed 1,803 metres up Alpe d’Huez on his Trek bike it was a 54 frame, probably. That’s 54 centimetres. The French have given us flight, amazing food, incredible wine and great rudeness, but the thing they couldn’t initially persuade us Brits to collaborate with is the superbly accurate, elegant, adaptable and absurdly SIMPLE metric system. Get over imperial, it should have died along with the British Empire, and embrace metrification!

Because logical people don't measure thing with their feet. This is not the stone age.

work in mm ....forget about the centermeters that is for dressmakers ...get a tape marked in mm across the full face of the tape so that you can read measurements holding the tape in your right hand.... and mark measurements holding the tape in your left hand and your scribe in your right hand....if you need to work in inches use a tape marked only in inches for the reasons i outlined above ...get a tape like the one shown in the video but only use it on the rare occasion when you are thinking in both metric and imperial comparing the options ...don't write off the imperial system completely there are some jobs where it will work better

Im always thinking: wouldnt it be convenient for everyone if Imperial units were 'rounded' towards metric. An inch would then become exactly 25mm and a foot would be 30cm (still 12 inches). Here we did a similar thing when we converted to metric. We still have a pound (pond) which is exactly 500 grams and an ounce (ons) which is 100 grams (quite a deviation there, 30 grams would probably feel better)

Mixed measurement tools increase errors

Remember also: It is only USA and two other "great" countries that in fact, officially uses the imperial system, Myanmar, a horrible state in asia and Liberia, an even more horrible state in africa.

We re kinda forced to use imperial here is US. If you go to any hardware shop and if you are looking for screws, nuts, bolts etc, they are are all in inches and it's fractions.
I 100% agree that Metric is easier , simpler and more natural. However, when everything around you is in imperial, it is difficult to work in metric.

50 years ago, I started as an apprentice aircraft engineer with an airline that operated american built aircraft built in iches, feet and pounds. Around 25 years ago, Australia went metric in everything. We did not scrap our american built aircraft, we had to continue to work in inches, feet and pounds on those while everything around us was going metric. Some peoople really struggled with the change because they were always trying to convert fron one system to the other. The easy thing to do is to to get rules and measures in both systems, so when you need to work in inches you use a 12 inch rule, and if you need to work in mm , you use a 300mm rule. Then you don't need to do any converting in your head and inevitably get it wrong! As an example, I have 4 sets of drills.... one set of inch drills, one set of number drills, one set of letter drills and a set of metric drills, so when I need to drill a whole I use the set that suits what I need rather than trying to convert from one system to another and get it wrong.

Who would measure in Neanderthal feet without any need?

There’s a reason there aren’t 100 minutes in an hour.

If you have a hobby shop, in the USA, you are probably refurbishing antique machinery to keep the price down. They are neither Imperial or Metric, but US Customary units. If you work on old US cars, use US Customary. If you need to ship stuff outside the US, use Metric.

French Metric or SI versus US Customary Metric. Not Imperial. They are all measurement metrics.

For the average person, it is not so important which system is used, but for an engineer and any technical person, the metric system is the best choice possible. Many fairly complex calculations in everyday life are done in the mind in a couple of seconds, I’m not even talking about complex engineering calculations. There the advantage of the metric is even more noticeable.

Never convert! Just use metric

An american that has come to his senses, you have seen the light.

Order a Lufkin Australian tape measure. Millimeters only. Never look back.

Patriotism left the chat...

Metric is far easier than Imperial. Like a handful of countries still use Imperial....

The units of measurement in the metric system are not defined arbitrarily but reflect what we observe in the universe and are defined by precise measurements (updated as the technology we use progresses) of fundamental elements of nature:
- Second (s): the second is defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom.
- Meter (m): the meter is defined based on the speed of light in a vacuum: it is the distance that light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.
-Kilogram (kg): defined by fixing the numerical value of the Planck constant (h) to 6.62607015 times 10 to the power of negative 34 joule seconds. The kilogram is then the mass of an object whose energy equivalent, determined by the relation E equals mc squared, corresponds to h times a specific frequency.

A simple online search will provide the definitions of the other metric system units, which are based on precise quantities derived from scientific experiments. In contrast, the imperial system, if not standardized by the metric system, would be entirely arbitrary.

Why anyone would still use imperial measurements is beyond me. I'm off for a pint.

I grew up with the imperial system of measure; gallons, pounds, ounces, miles. Then I moved to Australia and I had to learn metric; liters, kilos, kilometers.
After that I moved to Texas, and I had to learn a new system, in Texas it is an easier system. Everything in Texas is measured in shit-loads, much easier. “Ya gonna need a shit-load a that to finish this job.”
Distance is measured in beer, “How far is Dallas from Waco?”, “Oh hell, you gonna need a twelve-pack.” They’ll tell ya.

I was taught in engineering to use Metres and millimetres ,centimetres were not used at all. To me imperial is good until you get to 32nds and 64ths then it get a bit silly.

When the Europeans first got here, they used feet, inches, fractions. A little later comes decimals.
A little more recently, in the 40's...the famous Wright-Paterson war airplane engines that went into all the famous planes, B-17 and planes Iam not familiar with) were made with U.S Standard. No foreign jibberish (metriQ ) was needed.
I have a lifetime in metal fabrication. I put everything in inches, fractions. One job was to drill 2,000 holes in 3"x 8 " steel tubes. I got every hole in the right place...the first time. ( The hogan drill bit was not long enough to go all the way through to the other side...so, I had to turn each tube over...and layout the awaiting undrilled side, the 3"x 8" tubes were to be bolted together...Plus the tubes were going to be powder coated!).
I will not betray all the work done with U.S Standard. metriQ is for...foreigners.
If someone loves metriQ that much...move to a country that uses it. Don't try and change what has worked Very well with the trash from europe, thank you.

Do not convert, just use your tape to measure your measurement and then use the same tape to measure your piece you want to cut.

The problem I have working with metric is I always look up the imperial equivalent so I have a point of reference. I think on my next project I will work with the metric system from start to finish and not reference the imperial measurement at all and see what happens.