- Location
- Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Yes, OO gauge for me. EM, P4 and 009 are also 4mm to the foot.
Metric or Imperial? Or both?
- Thread starter Vantage
- Start date
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classic33
Leg End Member
You'll get folk confused.
raleighnut
Legendary Member
- Location
- One of the 'Elite'
wonderloaf
Veteran
At work I always generally thought in millimeters but when considering small clearances (or interference's) used to think in thousands of an inch (thou's) as it seemed more natural. I would then convert the thou's to millimeters for my final calculations! 
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
I'll give you the middle finger to that suggestion.
Yellow Saddle
Guru
- Location
- Loch side.
Metric till I die. Then I won't give an iota, they can bury me six foot under if they like.
Not so sure about that. When I worked in engineering / building services builing measurements were given in mm. For instance distance between roof trusses would be marked as 6100mm. or the height of a wall might be 4250mm
raleighnut
Legendary Member
- Location
- One of the 'Elite'
In theory the centimetre stopped existing years ago as a unit of measurement.
Salty seadog
Space Cadet...(3rd Class...)
Don't come in here with your la de da stories of extinct units of length......
I'll have you know my 27.5 inch wheels can also be described as 698.5....698.5.....nnnrrr...698.5................... bugger it you win, 698.5mm, I just can't get that decimal point to the other side of the 8.
Specialeyes
Guru
- Location
- Essex
Another good thing about a nice, logical system like the metric system is it's easier to spot when something's awry, as it's usually out by a factor of 10...
We talk in terms of 8x4s at work, as it's just a handy shorthand for '1220x2440', but measure in mm. If I'm measuring a site hoarding, the SI unit will be 'boards', so it might be 27boards, 638mm, which everyone knows is 33,578mm!
Height and driving distance are the only purely imperial measures I can think of that we still use at home.
We talk in terms of 8x4s at work, as it's just a handy shorthand for '1220x2440', but measure in mm. If I'm measuring a site hoarding, the SI unit will be 'boards', so it might be 27boards, 638mm, which everyone knows is 33,578mm!
Height and driving distance are the only purely imperial measures I can think of that we still use at home.
nickyboy
Norven Mankey
- Location
- You want hills? We got hills
the usual mish mash....
Small distances, metric mm, m....big distances miles. Except one's height which is feet and inches of course
Weight is metric except one's weight which is stones and pounds
Volume is litres except anything served in a pint or half pint glass
Temp is metric Celsius. None of yer old fashioned Fahrenheit nonsense here
Small distances, metric mm, m....big distances miles. Except one's height which is feet and inches of course
Weight is metric except one's weight which is stones and pounds
Volume is litres except anything served in a pint or half pint glass
Temp is metric Celsius. None of yer old fashioned Fahrenheit nonsense here
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
And was replaced by the centipede and the millipede.
Tail End Charlie
Well, write it down boy ......
- Location
- In green and pleasant hills.
Ah just got it! Only several hours later!
Yellow Fang
Legendary Member
- Location
- Reading
Metric is definitely better for engineering. Plumbing can be difficult because pipes tend to be metric and measured outside diameter, by flow meter ports are often imperial and measured inner diameter. Then you have diametric nominale, which is a list of metric diameters approximating standard imperial port sizes.
