37 year old American here. I was raised learning both and I can and have built things in both systems. Hell I’ve even mixed them on occasion. I own a metric tape measure and a metric/inch tape measure, and several inch tape measures.
Specifically for woodworking, I vastly prefer working in fractional inches, for a whole stack of reasons but mainly in the wood shop, you find yourself dividing by 2 or 3 way more often than 5 or 10. Working in a dozenal system in powers of 2 makes more sense for that than working in a decimal system in powers of ten. It’s just easier to buy rough lumber at 1 inch thick, use 1/4" of it to mill it flat and parallel so you have 3/4", and now if you need to do a half-lap joint it’ll be 3/8" or a tenon will be 1/4".
Really interesting reply, and thank you for it. I’ve spent time in metric countries, and can, to a limited degree, equate either measurement to the other. Hell, I measure my vodka shots by the ml.
Before I enlisted, I had worked as a laborer putting siding on houses, and had to make cuts in both systems. I naturally default to imperial/avoirdupois, but given that most packaging has metric on it, I can still reference a can of soda as 355 ml. When I vaped, all of my e-juice was sold in mls, too.
Like being a polyglot, learning more than one language has its benefits, but if one has only ever learned one language, the likelihood is high that any other language encountered will seem strange.
Coming from a non-American, an inches-only tape measure is incredibly cursed
As an American, I was a bit flabbergasted when I looked through all the tape measures at the store, and none of them had a metric side
I found one when I looked but it was a bit spendy cause it was fancy in other ways. Still went for it cause I want both units.
As a Canadian I hate it too.
Those fractions are barely readable and I’m not even dyslexic
That’s how I feel about Celsius being for everyone.
even though I know it’s literally the best option, my pea sized brain goes “wait? 30° is hot??”
You don’t have to use the same unit in all situations. Just ask the British.
My favorite mixed unit is the standard adiabatic lapse rate, which is given as 2 degrees C per 1,000 feet.
As an American engineer I agree
Even more cursed if those same markings where on a CM calibrated scale.
Well yeah, if you were raised learning imperial measurements, you’d probably find a metric-only tape to be an criminal abomination just as easily.
37 year old American here. I was raised learning both and I can and have built things in both systems. Hell I’ve even mixed them on occasion. I own a metric tape measure and a metric/inch tape measure, and several inch tape measures.
Specifically for woodworking, I vastly prefer working in fractional inches, for a whole stack of reasons but mainly in the wood shop, you find yourself dividing by 2 or 3 way more often than 5 or 10. Working in a dozenal system in powers of 2 makes more sense for that than working in a decimal system in powers of ten. It’s just easier to buy rough lumber at 1 inch thick, use 1/4" of it to mill it flat and parallel so you have 3/4", and now if you need to do a half-lap joint it’ll be 3/8" or a tenon will be 1/4".
Really interesting reply, and thank you for it. I’ve spent time in metric countries, and can, to a limited degree, equate either measurement to the other. Hell, I measure my vodka shots by the ml.
Before I enlisted, I had worked as a laborer putting siding on houses, and had to make cuts in both systems. I naturally default to imperial/avoirdupois, but given that most packaging has metric on it, I can still reference a can of soda as 355 ml. When I vaped, all of my e-juice was sold in mls, too.
Like being a polyglot, learning more than one language has its benefits, but if one has only ever learned one language, the likelihood is high that any other language encountered will seem strange.
No, they’re fine. It’s the bilingual tapes that are a pain in the ass. You have to guess at half the measurements no matter your preferred scale.
Yes, if you were also a illogical moron.