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Thread: How come we still haven't embraced the metric system here?

  1. #61

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    Do you think that applies to carpentry as well Spider?

  2. #62
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    I don't see why not, Bill. Plywood is already manufactured in mm, whatever label Home Depot and Lowes put on the rack. And tolerances for lumber sizes are certainly not accurate to 1/100 of an inch. 4" x 2" is more like 3 1/2" x 1 3/4" these days. I'll bet all the screws and nails are metric converted to imperial for the diehards.

    If the Weights and Measures Department were to offer a bounty of $100 for every imperial tape measure turned in, we'd be metric in the building industry by Thursday morning!

  3. #63
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    Your manufacturing tolerance argument is not correct. If something is stated to be 3", but it's acceptable for it to be between 2 127/128 to 3 1/128" - it's not O.K. to re-name it 3 1/128". If you do, you would also have to change the acceptable range to 3" to 3 1/64. Without changing the manufacturing process to target the new 3 1/128" measurement you would then have a lot of waste.

    I also don't think re-naming things to their metric equivalent is truly converting to metric. I'm guessing other parts of the country actually manufacture and use 13mm pipe and not 12.7mm pipe.
    Steve B

  4. #64
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    I accept what you are saying, Steve, perhaps I didn't explain myself properly. The re-naming I suggest would be to the actual mm equivalent - a 1/2" pipe, manufactured as a 1/2" pipe, would be called 12.7mm pipe (because that's what it is.) As a separate observation, I figured 13mm pipe is within the manufacturing tolerances of 12.7mm pipe so this 13mm pipe could be used instead of the 12.7mm pipe without causing conflict with the plumbing codes.

  5. #65
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    Frederick, I'm going to agree with Steve. Just renaming items to metric isn't changing to the metric system.
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    Yes, it is. That's all the metric system is - a different way of measuring things. They are still the same things. They are just measured differently. Thinking otherwise is why people feel they cannot make the change. You make a big problem of something and you create your own difficulties.

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    Frederick, you a technically correct. The only technical difference between metric and English system is how the pie is divided. However, in practice one of the key benefits on the metric system is that common items tend to be in whole units. Lengths, weights, volumes tend to be 10,20,30 instead of 3' 6", 1lb 2oz, or 1/3 cup. Just changing the names over to their metric equivalents would not work. In addition, changes names would not allow for standardization with other countries.
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  8. #68

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    What did canada do when faced with this problem? And in fact, we call 2x4's 2x4's even though the finished product isn't. I bet some rounding in the naming of things occurs.

    The other thing that I pointed out above is that the machinery that makes pipes and other materials in other countries is almost certainly set up in metric units. They do a run of pipe and they set it at 12.7mm (or whatever it was). It just gets a different label.

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