would you Americans build from metric plans?

[dylan winter]

great idea

digital and free plans

digital and free tape measure

digital and free haggis

here http://www.standrew518.co.uk/BURNS/I...haggis-(1).jpg

digital free wood.... well I can see how the right search might allow you to access that

digital screw....

digital glue

bingo - an entirely imaginary boat

[Phil Westendorf]

Offer a free metric tape measure with your plans and I bet you'd have more takers.

Funny thing is, If you'd just asked if someone would build the boat without the Metric 'thing" you'd have a simple answer and we'd not have to read everyone's opinion on the Imperial vs. Metric Debate. Remember opinions are like A..holes, everyone has one.
For the record we (Americans) didn't adopt the Metric System yet and really don't need it. Liters/quarts, Jim Beam still tastes great!

pw

[Phil Y]

The thing is, your economy is pretty well knackered. If you don't catch up soon, you will never be able to. America will be a quaint tourist destination, where people go to see cars and motorbikes that can't go around corners, people who carry guns in the back window of their trucks and people who still use funny measurements which nobody anywhere else understands or uses any more. America was once a great and progressive nation. But now?

[Lewisboater]

Yep...our noses are just above the bottom of the toilet...won't be long now.

[CapnJ2ds]

For the record we (Americans) didn't adopt the Metric System yet and really don't need it. pw

Actually, yes you did, way back when everybody else did. It's just that it doesn't seem to have penetrated very far yet. And yes you do need it, if you want to go on selling to the rest of the world. Time to move into the 21st century.

[Phil Westendorf]

Actually, yes you did, way back when everybody else did. It's just that it doesn't seem to have penetrated very far yet. And yes you do need it, if you want to go on selling to the rest of the world. Time to move into the 21st century.

For the record, the folks in Washington D.C. have yet to adopt a Metric Standard for measurement for the Products made or sold in the USA. Several major mfg'rs. have so they can say they are Good guys and folks in Europe, Asia, etc. will buy their products. Maybe someday it will happen, but I for one am not holding my breath. We seem to be getting along just fine.
There are a hell of a lot more important issues in this World than wether a piece of wood is 39.37 inches long or one meter. Does it meet it's needs of the guy with the saw, hammer, glue?

[Ryden]

In an attempt to lift this thread above the Bilge level I'll go slightly off topic here.

Do you see any difference in the way boats are built due to the system of measurement?

When we build something we tend to do so in whole units, be it feet or inch or meters or decimeters or whatever.
This should affect the final outcome of the plan.



The blue section is 6X1 meters an the red is 20' by 3'

[andrewe]

Suspect that ply and other materials are still in imperial because of the equipment used in production. Same might be true of pipe sizes. Ibera and France certainly still use British pipe threads. Just (in France) they give them metric labels. In Portugal, It was always polgadas (inches) for plumbing diameters and metres for length, except for copper. But the copper fittings threads are still imperial BSP.
I work in metric, but am still comfortable in inches. As above, talking about a ' a couple of feet' but cutting it in mm. And that is after living on the continent for close on 40 yrs.
When I buy steel tube, the rectangular stuff is in metric sizes. The round is still inch, but stated in mm. So the 43mm is actually 42.4 and the 34 mm is 33.7mm. Wall thickness is mm, of course....
One oddity, French production boats are always sold in foot lengths. Market forces.
A

[potomac]

Thanks a lot Ryden. Not only am I American, but I'm also colorblind, so now I'm totally confused. (No offense to my Canadian neighbors, I was just keeping with the title of the thread)

[the_gr8t_waldo]

a metric project wouldn't slow me down

[Ryden]

Thanks a lot Ryden. Not only am I American, but I'm also colorblind, so now I'm totally confused. (No offense to my Canadian neighbors, I was just keeping with the title of the thread)

Get yourself a pair of old fashioned 3D-glasses and start winking with one eye at a time.
If that won't help, you'll at least be even more confused

[Me Tarzan]

I converted to metric long ago for mechanical purposes. Can't remember last time I used a 5/8" wrench etc... Oh yah for woodworking, lag bolts and such... Metric system sure makes more sense so we probably won't change. I would be glad to build from metric plans.

[beernd]

I did get hold at last of an inches measuring thingy and tried to start lofting in any sort of scale like and after 5 minutes I went ape $hit.
As soon as I got my plans for the "Compact", Excel was started and the whole shebang converted to metric.
Now I have two tables : one with the scale 1/1 and one where I put a variable called "factor" in each cell.
I want to build a model scale 1:10 I just put the value 10 in the cell called "factor" and bingo.
I really don't want to have to count of things all the time OK so some thing is 2 feet 5 inches and 3 eights, I start counting to 24, thats the feet I count 5 more, thats the inches, and I count 3eights, OOF. I'm there. In mm's I just read it of the tape measure 74 centimeters and 6 mm.

MFM (Metrics For Me)

[John Meachen]

On this side of the North Sea we wouldn't use the centimetres,746 millimetres would be enough.Some of us would be equally comfortable with feet,inches and eighths and some are bilingual.

[AndyG]

I've got a March '06 Scientific American here ... ummm, March 1906.

It says:

The standards of length of the United States are two meter bars, which are kept in the custody of the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, and preserved most carefully in its strong vault. These standards are exact copies of the international prototype meter, and were constructed after years of investigation and labor by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, being delivered to the united States government in 1899. Three years later the international meter as thus represented was adopted as the fundamental standard of length of the nation by executive order, and to these standard bars now all measures of length in the United States must now be ultimately referred ...

So you've all been building in metres, anyway.

Andy