Metric vs Fractional (Imperial)

[ralexander03@snet.net (Rick Alexander)]

I'm a residential building restoration contractor. Carpenter by any other
standards. I can shed some light on the reason that architects are going to
be hard to move to the metric system. All of the saw mills here work in the
imperial system and the codes developed to use their materials has evolved
around that system. Everything is sold in two foot increments because the
standard spacing of things is 16". Conveniently that works out to be an even
fraction of four feet and eight feet and a multiple of four inches and eight
inches. So you should be able to see that the architects are the easy part
of this transition. The economic impact of re-tooling all of those mills
would be staggering. Re- tooling and re-training an even greater number of
tradesmen will be close to impossible. Now assume that things were to change
to the metric system and we started building our homes, offices and
factories in the metric system. All of the materials would be metric and
maintaining the existing structures would become more difficult and more
expensive. So in the end the change over in the building trades would take
about two hundred years.

I particularly like the metric system (in my garage) but I would not look
forward to learning how to think metric at work. Then the process of
constantly doing all of those conversions even for minor projects just
floors me. I have plenty of calculating to do now thank you.

Rick Alexander
'87 MKII Rolling Roc
'86 Cabbie
'81 "S" MKI G60 in progress
'80 MKI (Parts)
'73 Baja Challenge car
'65 Brubaker Box
'62 Tuff Tubb dune buggy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Elijah R" <nicadimus@hotmail.com>
To: <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 10:39 AM
Subject: Re: Metric vs Fractional (Imperial)


> The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is moving the U.S. to the
> metric system and have been for years, just very very slowly. If you think
> about it would be very costly to just up and switch over all at once, so
> ANSI has started with goverment and the children. schools are required to
> put more metric than imperial in the classes so that younger generations
can
> do at least both systems and cope with the change over. Just about any
thing
> the government does is based on metric now. Hasn't any one noticed the
duel
> unit speed limit signs? All state departments of transportation have been
on
> metric for about 10 years, contractors and engineers can not submit work
in
> ft/in (imperial) at all. My work as a engineering designer is all in
metric
> as is most the engineering field with the exception of architects who are
> die hard imperial.
>
>   Note: The distance called a mile varies greatly in different countries.
> Its length in yards is, in Norway, 12,182; in Brunswick, 11,816; in
Sweden,
> 11,660; in Hungary, 9,139; in Switzerland, 8,548; in Austria, 8,297; in
> Prussia, 8,238; in Poland, 8,100; in Italy, 2,025; in England and the
United
> States, 1,760; in Spain, 1,552; in the Netherlands, 1,094.
>
> whats up with that???
>
> Elijah
> 86 16v
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: Jorel Jackson <jorel140@yahoo.com>
> >To: John Lagnese <jlagnese@massed.net>
> >CC: volkswagen scirocco <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
> >Subject: Re: Metric vs fractional
> >Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2002 05:40:25 -0800 (PST)
> >
> >Perplexing for sure. Since I deal with Americans and
> >people from all over the world (mostly Europe) on a
> >daily basis, I have to convert back and forth all the
> >time. The Americans are the problem, since so many
> >continue to use the fractional system. I'm getting
> >tired of it. We need to choose just one...metric.
> >
> >I asked my Netherlander wife about the ratchets, and
> >she answered like most the women I have known in my
> >life.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >--- John Lagnese <jlagnese@massed.net> wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > > I had a thought while reaching for my ratchet. We
> > > use fractional
> > > ratchets for metric sockets. Outside of the USA is
> > > this also the case? I
> > > thought it somewhat perplexing since almost the rest
> > > of the world other
> > > than the USA uses the metric system.
> > > John
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Scirocco-l mailing list
> > > Scirocco-l@scirocco.org
> > > http://neubayern.net/mailman/listinfo/scirocco-l
> >
> >=====
> >Jorel Jackson
> >web site:  http://www.home.earthlink.net/~jomoj/
> >1987 16V Scirocco
> >2000 Neon ES
> >Ranger XLT
> >
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