Learning to Love the Metrinch

Mine are FAR more accurate than that.

Nobody yet seems to have mentioned the Tudor inch. Went to see the Mary Rose again in Portsmouth last week and the carpenters' rules were marked in Tudor inches. Can't remember but I think they were slightly smaller than the "metrinch". Was this the reason she sank? Maybe the main plughole was a metrinch and the plug a Tudor one????

1 inch = 3 barleycorns, then there was a Scottish inch 25.441mm

Hi, and there is also the inch up/down inch forward/backward. The conversion factors for these are complicated and variable.

John S, does the adjusting nut have a wireless sensor, or is there a laser sensor between the jaws.

Regards Nick.

Neil;

This link is from a couple of years ago, but shows how us Canadians are ahead of the curve when it comes to metrification.

https://youtu.be/DcbO3hl3_F0

If the link does not work - youtube and look for "Westjet converts to metric time"

Off to finish the washing up - John.

Hi

It is now first of April in New Zealand and thankfully over 19000 Kilometres from the E.U or a lot of metincnhes.

You must be importing lots of "Taranaki Mushrooms" for breakfast as this garbled nonsense can only come from the mind that is altered by by chemical action.

Do the Idiots that want to make such changes have any idea of how to measure things accurately.

The next one will be metric time perhaps Westjet was NOT joking and each day is a kilometre long just to add to the confusion.

It's NOT broke or liable to break so what is point in trying to fix it.

Must be that if you are useless at anything then be a politician for the E.U.

Where are descendants of the founders of the industrial revolution or have the sledge hammer wielding machine smashers begun to dominate and be elected to high places.

Wonder how they tackle the "Pythagarus Theorum".

Not much point from a New Zealand perspective as the sun goes From East over North To West

so we must be going the wrong way.

Perhaps we should change all threads to "Left Hand" as we are turning the opposite way.

Kia Kaha - Be Strong and stand up for what you Know to be right.

Eric

Yeah see the "ruling" bodies have been trying for 1,000's of years to standardise everything from a pound to a pinch of shit.

But as pointed out by the by those who never cut their finger nails even a pinch of shit can vary considerably. Never mind at least we can agree what a long wait is, particularly if the council has closed the local convenience.

However if it's a sash-cord weight you're looking for then forget it and buy double glazing.

Am I making any sense? Then why expect white collar EU pen pushing jobs worth to make any cents either?

I also hear that Britain does a good line in imaginary jobs now too. So I'm getting a couple of those to double my imaginary income.

I'm not sure but I may have lost the plot here.

Put aside your 127/128 conversion-gearing projects,

and have a look at this instead

Blue Note 1553

MichaelG.

I have found working to the MetYard is accurate to within three Metrinches. However since tracking my car to the standard My tire wear seems to have increased. Any ideas fellas?

Edited By Bodgit Fixit and Run on 01/04/2015 08:25:08

No-one seems to have mentioned Patternmakers' rules.

Geoff

Patternmaker's rules not mentioned? That is because they do have a use unlike the EU.

OK, I know some of you aren't taking this seriously, and I can see why, but I have found some more details and it starts to make sense.

It;'s all about rationalising the supply of non-precision sized materials in fractional sizes. So 1" PGMS or Silver steel will still be 1.000" and 25.4mm (within whatever tolerance you want to pay for)

The tolerance bands will be shifted for fractional sizes of things like BDMS, aluminium extrusions and so on (ref. the recent discussion on how big the tolerance bands are fro drawn alloy tubes). In these cases the 'metrinch' will be used (i.e. 25.6mm rather than 25.4mm) and the 'official size' of fractional stock will be 1.0078% larger.

This means all fractional stock down to 1/256 of an inch (in practice little is produced below 1/32" steps) will translate to exact sizes to 0.1 of a mm. These sizes are already within existing tolerance bands for nearly all products affected. For example a 3/8" bar will 'officially' be exactly 9.60mm rather than 9.525.

This will greatly simplify the design process for any projects using mixed imperial and metric stock (i.e. you can specify standard metric size tooling (available in 0.1mm steps) for any task using non-precision imperial stock.

The rumour is that this is actually Brussels running up the white flag and accepting that the imperial system is here to stay and that, in some parts of industry (those dealing with the USA, at least) some aspects of metrication may be rolled back.

In practice, it will have little more impact than the fact that number drills are now actually made to metric, not imperial, dimensions.

Neil

Neil; I know that it's April 1st and all that,

Being north of the border, (the USA one) I understand the focus on inches. But, looking at the 3D printer group in the USA, they all seem to speak (and, comprehend) metric.

I think metric is better understood in the USA than we might at first think; maybe in 10 or 20 years, metric will indeed be a unifying force for manufacturing around the world.

John.

Neil, I was sent this flyer by one of my suppliers today, maybe it would be the ideal place for you to sit and google the metrinch some more

I had heard that the US were going to use a similar system but just to be different to the rest of the world they will adopt the "imperimetre"

Edited By JasonB on 01/04/2015 12:52:27

.

... Thus making them the wrong size

Well I hope there aren't too many deeply upset folks.

I've had a regular trickle of emails and a few phone calls from concerned readers! I started this thread early because it was mentioned in the magazine and I wanted somewhere to 'send' folks who wanted to know more.

Even my daughter rang me up to say she hopes I don't get beaten up my enraged readers who have thrown away their out-of date tools.

I could have written a book on this - how it would have prevented the Hubble mirror cock-up and saved Mars express, and how the success of Rosetta and Philae in reaching a comet was partly down to an early trial of using the system. Then there was the NATO angle (the various types of 'mil'.

Of course the irony is that back in the 70s Model Engineer was carrying editorials and articles warning us that imperial equipment and stock was soon to disappear...

Neil

I reside across the pond and Metric is not better understood than is widely believed. Our inch is not broken and no need to fix it.

I totally agree Mark, as Lambton pointed out earlier, your inch was 'fixed' in July 1959

Neil