#10 screw and 3/16 screw

[John Stevenson]

Where is the unit for people-size measurements? Metres are too big, you need too many decimal places. MM get ridiculous as you get into thousands of them.

"Oh, it's about 1.21 metres"............ that's just silly. but "it's about 4 feet" is perfect.

.

Not hard once you get used to it like everything.

Talking of thousands we use Tonnes here, metric tonnes, 1,000 Kg to a ton.
So when we talk of trucks we say 42 tonnes gross weight.

You say 92,000 pounds or whatever .

That's thousands of them isn't and silly.

.

[oldtiffie]

Tuns 'uv it

It gets better John as the difference between a "standard" ("long") USA/"inch"/"imperial" ton and a metric tonne is less than 2%, so the "1,000's of pounds" use and argument for it fall flat for every-day use as 42 tonne sounds better.

Conversions
One tonne is equivalent to:

One megagram (exactly);
This is the official SI term, but not generally used in industry, in shipping nor colloquially
1000⁄0.45359237 pounds (exactly by definition), giving approximately
2205 lb (to four significant digits)

98.42% of a long ton

One long ton (2,240 lb) is 101.605% of a tonne


110.23% of a short ton

One short ton (2,000 lb) is 90.72% of a tonne

from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonne

[darryl]

So what about beer- now we have a 'sleeve'- how much friggin beer is that, anyway? I always thought a sleeve was something you wiped your nose on.

'yeah, I'll have a sleeve of Rickards please' 'will that be a short sleeve or a long one?- sir'

Uh, lessee- 894 millilitres- JUST BRING ME THE DAMN KEG- %#$&^*!

[tyrone shewlaces]

Not hard once you get used to it like everything.

Talking of thousands we use Tonnes here, metric tonnes, 1,000 Kg to a ton.
So when we talk of trucks we say 42 tonnes gross weight.

You say 92,000 pounds or whatever .

That's thousands of them isn't and silly.

.

No. For 92,000 pounds we'd say 46 tons.

Tons have been around longer than tonnes haven't they? Why not say 42 teragrams? Why add to the confusion in two ways, by using a word that sounds exactly like the imperial unit and appears very close, and interjecting a new unit into the system that already has a unit name for that?
It can't be an abbreviation of teragram, because (at least over here) you never hear someone just say "tonne", they have to say "metric tonne" - not a shortcut. Should have just stuck with teragram.
Did someone maliciously plot it out and add two letters to come up with that tonne unit in an effort to intentionally confuse, or was it someone at the opposite end of the spectrum who was just short-sighted? Now we just have to live with it.
I guess the good thing about metric is that instead of 150 separate systems of measurement throughout the globe, now we only have a handful. Once we in the US finally fall completely apart (we're on our way there in a hurry) and have no better reason than stubbornness to adopt, I guess we'll then finally be forced to do so.

[loose nut]

Outside of the US no one uses UNF / UNC any more.

We still use them in Canada, it's what you will get at any local hardware store, just as some Brits still use BSW, BSF and BA systems and many other Metric countries still use obsolete (non-ISO systems) Metric screw systems. As for the Whitworth system, if you read up on him, he just went around to the main shops of the day and averaged out the different screw standards each of them was using and it came out to 55 Deg. If it really is stronger then the 60 Deg thread form of Imp. and Metric it was a bit of luck not genius, the genius was selling standardized threading kits and making $#!+ loads of money.

There is only one thing wrong with the metric screw system, it was designed by a bunch of syphilitic bureaucrats whose brains had started to melt and not machinists. It was made to be neat and not to fill the needs of the countries with existing metric based screw system. If you don't believe me, why does metric notation use the comma as a separator instead of the period, it's called a decimal POINT not a decimal comma. Some 'crat came up with that.

There isn't any world wide standardization in
language,
money,
religion,
calenders,
direction of writing,
which side of the road we drive on,
voltages,
TV signals,
train track sizes,
etc. etc. etc. It goes on and on, get the point.

We don't standardize anything else why should we standardize measurement.

The only universally applied standard that works is Time.

[John Garner]

oldtiffie and all the rest of you --

I find it particularly ironic that a text intended to describe in great detail the geometry of some particular threadform gets the name of the threadform wrong.

The case in point? The text shown in Post 41 of this Thread.

The basic geometry -- sixty degree angle between flanks measured in a plane containing the axis of the screwthread, with a 1/8 Pitch flat at the Major Diameter and a 1/4 Pitch flat at the Minor Diameter -- is that of the Unified screwthread, which was developed jointly by the U.S., Canadian, and British in 1949 to preclude recurrence of the WWII logistics problems created by the differences between U.S. Standard and British Standard screwthreads and fasteners.

In standardizing their newly-developed Unified threadform, the U.S., Canadian, and British authorities developed two series of Diameter and Pitch pairings, one relatively coarser than the other. The coarser of the two series was termed the Unified Coarse series, the finer was termed the Unified Fine series.

The abbreviation for the Unified Coarse series of standard screwthreads is UNC, that for the Unified Fine series of standard screwthreads is UNF.

The U.S. Government made the Unified threadform the official standard U.S. threadform, replacing the earlier standard, which was designed and had been proposed as the U.S. Standard threadform by William Sellers in 1864.

Over its lifetime, that earlier U.S. Standard threadform had collected a variety of different names, including 1) Sellers, 2) U.S. Standard, and 3) American National. Like the later Unified threadform, the Sellers / U.S. Standard / American National was standardized in two series of Diameter - Pitch combinations, a Coarse series and a Fine series.

In common U.S. use, the two series were termed [American] National Coarse and [American] National Fine, abbreviated NC and NF, respectively.

Despite oldtiffie's textbook -- and many other textbooks -- there is no "Unified National" screwthread standard. "Unified" is one standard threadform, "National" is another.

Then, for what it's worth . . . in 1959, a full decade after the British, Canadian, and U.S. jointly developed the Unified threadform for their common use, the ISO incorporated the geometry of the Unified threadform into their new screwthread standard, which they named ISO Metric. A number of European nations -- including France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy -- officially replaced their earlier (and largely NOT interchangeable) national standard threadforms with the ISO Metric standard.

Because the fundamental geometry of the ISO Metric threadform exactly matches that of the older Unified threadform, it can be fairly argued that the ISO Metric standard is simply a special case of the Unified standard.

John

[loose nut]

oldtiffie and all the rest of you --

Because the fundamental geometry of the ISO Metric threadform exactly matches that of the older Unified threadform, it can be fairly argued that the ISO Metric standard is simply a special case of the Unified standard.

John

Oh boy, are you going to get it now

[John Stevenson]

No. For 92,000 pounds we'd say 46 tons.

From a current post on Heavy hauling pic's by Dockrat there is a link to another move where it states;-

Check out this load. They are hauling a coker that was built in Edmonton and hauling it to Fort McMurray. There is one truck pulling and two pushing. Total weight is 1,757,688 lbs. Have a good look at the bridge as it goes over.

Read more: http://www.dieselbombers.com/show-te...#ixzz0cjEm441D

Some one else post a pic about a large move within the last month all in pounds, can anyone visualise 1,757,688 lbs ?

.

[loose nut]

Can anyone visualize 798949 KG's.

[spope14]

3.5 metric tons is what I tell my students when they ask something. Sounds pretty large.

[J Tiers]

Well - let's see.


0.01mm ~ 0.0004" ("four tenths") - just under 0.0005" ("half a thou") and well with the reach and capability of most HSM-ers and 0.10mm ~ 0.004" ("four thou") - also easily related to.

it's within reach, but typically isn't done much.... a couple thou is common, 5 thou is getting 'loose", and under a thou is "pretty tight".

but, 4 tenths IS 10 microns..... getting to "Evan territory" there...... Normally for that sort of measurement you folks all start talking about unrealistic tolerances for the home shop, and thermal effects etc...... Why the silence now?

it may be 40% of a thou, but its more than twice as fine a measurement...... well into thermal error territory. Normally a tolerance reserved for bearing fits etc.

It's all in what you are used to, you can measure with anything...

John S.....

Of course you CAN use any unit, and some do, often to get a bigger and more impressive number....

But to have no intermediate measuring unit between two that are a factor of 1000 apart , is un-handy.

When that 'gap" is right in the area of 'people-sized" things, where decent accuracy is useful, it's more un-handy.

it would be better to have a unit about a half metre in length.

With all its faults, and I won't deny them, the inch/foot/yard series gives a number of useful measurement units in the "people-size" area. And all of them are easily related, all just really common names for multiples of inches. A foot could as easily been 10 inches...... in which case we might not be having this conversation.

metric WOULD have a reasonable sized unit, IF the "decimeter" had not been "deprecated"...... a decimeter would be about 4", and would be a useful subdivision......

And, by simply messing with the decimal places, you CAN get there..... "about 1.3 metre"......

if you are satisfied to "pollute" metric with fractions, you can do better...... "about a half metre"......... "about 2/3 metre"........ I like to do that just to mess with the tight decimalized minds of the metric advocates....... It's like asking a symphony violin player to improvise........ you are never quite sure if you will see a real case of human spontaneous combustion as a result.

People have odd ideas of the US..... I sent a fellow in europe a picture of some machine part or another, and included a metre stick in the picture for a size reference. He was astounded that I would possess such a thing. But they aren't that uncommon.

[tyrone shewlaces]

J Tiers
A foot could have been 10 inches rather than 12, but it was extremely likely created on purpose to have 12. For the common man (you know, the guy who makes and/or grows things and takes them to market to sell, etc.) base 10 doesn't work out as well. This is even more true the less literate folks are. It seems a small thing, but the simple act of dividing things up is a big deal in the concrete world, so 12 rises up to be more functional than 10. It can be divided by 2,3,4 and 6 and can be divided in half twice before you get into fractions. 10 can be divided by 2 and 5 and you're into fractional amounts right away.
Having said that, dividing by 2 and 5 might be handy enough. If the metric pushers of yore would have come up with a prefix or suffix for 1/2 and 1/5 of a unit (like meterak and meterpoo for example), it may have been easier to sell. Still not as good as base 12, but a little more serviceable for the common man.
I still say the base 10 is great for figuring things on paper, but in the physical world it is too far down on the list as choices go.
Metric - Shmetric.
Actually the best thing would have been for the world to just pick one and run with it. I personally wouldn't care much. Well I do now since I'm better than half a life through the units that I have been dealing with so far, but starting out young with a single standard would have been kinda handy. A "standard" isn't a standard when you have more than one of them. Metric was a good effort. They tried but the spaghetti didn't stick to the wall.

[mardtrp]

Wow, has this thread gone way of topic or what ?

It seems that this argument about imperial and metric will be around for many years to come and the main 'stayers' for imperial measurment are/is the 'dumb' Yanks.
They seem to be a bit bone headed about the imperial measurement and seem to throw all sorts of arguments up as to why it is better than metric.

If that's the case, then why do they have a METRIC monetry system ?

Somewhere in the distant past, they were using the Pounds, Shilling and Pence, but with a bit of an argument with the Pommies, they decided to go it alone.

So, where and when, did they swipe the metric monetry system from?

If metric is Ssooo bad, then why do they persist with the almighty METRIC dollar, why not just go right back to the bloody ridiculous Pounds, Shillings and Pence system that they were using ?

mark

[mardtrp]

Can anyone visualize 798949 KG's.

Yep, real simple, a tad under 799 ton.

mark

[Uncle O]

Wow, has this thread gone way of topic or what ?

It seems that this argument about imperial and metric will be around for many years to come and the main 'stayers' for imperial measurment are/is the 'dumb' Yanks.
They seem to be a bit bone headed about the imperial measurement and seem to throw all sorts of arguments up as to why it is better than metric.

If that's the case, then why do they have a METRIC monetry system ?

Somewhere in the distant past, they were using the Pounds, Shilling and Pence, but with a bit of an argument with the Pommies, they decided to go it alone.

So, where and when, did they swipe the metric monetry system from?

If metric is Ssooo bad, then why do they persist with the almighty METRIC dollar, why not just go right back to the bloody ridiculous Pounds, Shillings and Pence system that they were using ?

mark

Mark,
it would appear that you started the whole pissing match back in post # 5
by inferring the Imp. system to be inferior.
If you find it to be so difficult to use by all means don't strain your tiny cranium in attempting to do so. We wouldn't want you to stroke out....
As it has been noted and stated we have no difficulty using both systems,
and switching back and forth is done with relative ease.
Except for you and some others who insist on bashing us "dumb yanks" for NOT using YOUR preferred or perhaps only known way of measuring, I only see us "Dumb yanks" showing you the folly of your ASSertion that yours makes sense and ours doesn't.
Now , don't be such a wanker and go piss off eh ?