Hedge layers measure.

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demographic

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Apr 15, 2005
4,691
710
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The one measurement I am opposed to using is CMs.
Millimeters? Yeah, all the time.
Metres? Yeah for the big stuff but centimeters just confuse the issue, the only people I know using them are teachers (with little or no industry experience) and dressmakers.
 
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Broch

Life Member
Jan 18, 2009
7,983
7,759
Mid Wales
www.mont-hmg.co.uk
The one measurement I am opposed to using is CMs.
Millimeters? Yeah, all the time.
Metres? Yeah for the big stuff but centimeters just confuse the issue, the only people I know using them are teachers (with little or no industry experience) and dressmakers.

Really? that's interesting - in the same way as I flip between inched and metric I am happy jumping between mm and cm - but then, I was brought up on the "metric" system not the SI system (we were even taught decimetres). I'll have to analyse how I use them - I suspect anything under 100mm I work in mm, anything between that and a metre, I work in cm - then it's metres and decimal places, so 1.62m etc.
 

TLM

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Nov 16, 2019
3,092
1,624
Vantaa, Finland
I'll have to analyse how I use them ...
I think in practice it comes down to that, different countries even vocations have slightly different ways of using the measurements. I use whatever I think makes the most sense at the time, not decimeters though but deciliters sometimes.

The one measurement I am opposed to using is CMs.
Careful there with the capitals. :)
 

fenix

Forager
Jul 8, 2008
136
102
Kent
I build and test industrial gas analysis kit for a living, mostly destined for semiconductor fabs in the Korea, China, USA. All built to fit into 19 inch rack mount standards, we work in psi for gas pressure.
 

Broch

Life Member
Jan 18, 2009
7,983
7,759
Mid Wales
www.mont-hmg.co.uk
I build and test industrial gas analysis kit for a living, mostly destined for semiconductor fabs in the Korea, China, USA. All built to fit into 19 inch rack mount standards, we work in psi for gas pressure.

Strangely, I am happier pumping my tyres up to 28psi than 2bar :)

However, hydraulics was always in bar - typically around the 200 to 300 bar levels. The 19" rack stuff always frustrated me because we bought gear from all over and a lot of it was dimensioned in mm; you never knew if was going to really fit until it was delivered and tried.
 

fenix

Forager
Jul 8, 2008
136
102
Kent
Strangely, I am happier pumping my tyres up to 28psi than 2bar :)

However, hydraulics was always in bar - typically around the 200 to 300 bar levels. The 19" rack stuff always frustrated me because we bought gear from all over and a lot of it was dimensioned in mm; you never knew if was going to really fit until it was delivered and tried.
High pressure we deal in bar, low its psi. Cylinders are still rated in bar 200 / 300 but most of our kit is sold with input pressures in psi. Most analysers are built with metric fastenings, but gas fittings are imperial for a lot of kit. Then again most customers still use 4-20ma for outputs, some use serial, nobody uses usb, industrial standards like modbus leapfrogged usb.
 
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demographic

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Apr 15, 2005
4,691
710
-------------
Really? that's interesting - in the same way as I flip between inched and metric I am happy jumping between mm and cm - but then, I was brought up on the "metric" system not the SI system (we were even taught decimetres). I'll have to analyse how I use them - I suspect anything under 100mm I work in mm, anything between that and a metre, I work in cm - then it's metres and decimal places, so 1.62m etc.


For me centimetres are just an unnecessary complication and basically nobody I know in the UK uses them on the plans.
We never used em in engineering either and in engineering even Imperial sizes used Thousandths instead of fractions.
When it gets small enough to need a decimal point its less than a millimetre.
Or sometimes if I'm on the measure and my work is priced by the metre (skirting, backmolds or the like) then I just go to the nearest 100mm and 4500mm would just be written as 4.5m. Never ever as 450cm. To me centimetres just don't help the metric system at all.

Mind, I was working over in France a few years ago and we needed a 600 concrete lintel, we asked in the builders merchants and they looked at us like we were daft. Thats cos they measure them in cms which would be a six metre long concrete lintel.
 
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TLM

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Nov 16, 2019
3,092
1,624
Vantaa, Finland
Here in building and machinery anything unmarked is automatically in mm, metres are marked m, cm is not in use. In In old soviet Union and following pseudo SU building used cm and in some of the former Warsaw countries it is still the practice though change is happening but slowly.

As said there are several possible ways of doing things, the best is the one causing least confusion.
 

TarryJack

Member
Dec 27, 2020
15
12
77
Buxton, Derbyshire
I like it when someone tells me they're better working in inches than metric so I give em a size like 2'6" and 17/32nds. After a minute or so of them faffing about trying to find it on the tape measure I point out they're just hopeless at measuring and we can get back to metric.
Or I give em sizes in cubits, just out of badness.
If you asked me to find 2' 6" 17/32 on a tape measure or rule, I could point it out to you, straight off, even if the tape measure / rul was only marked in eighths of an inch.
What few people seem to grasp these days is that, pre-metric, nobody needed to know all of the old measurements; once you started work, you learnt the ones you used in your job and ignored the rest. So fencers, hedgers and ditchers, landscape gardeners, and dry stone wallers worked with rods and chains - because they were the handiest sized units for them to use in their job. Boatbuilders ignored rods and chains, because feet, inches and eighths of an inch were the handiest units of measure for them to work with. Woodworkers went down to quarter inch, eighths or sixteenths, depending on whether they were carpenters, joiners or cabinet makers, and so on.
Those different measurements weren't dreamed up by some academics - nor were they based on an incorrect measurement of the circumference of the Earth (as though anyone could calculate that accurately in the 18th century!). They were worked out on the job by working people, and the units chosen were PRACTICAL for their particular job. Also, the sub-divisions of units gave you a useful graduation of measurements, instead of the 'everything divided by ten, whether it fits or not' approach.
The range of drill sizes in the old system is a classic example; smaller drills were in the numbers range, larger ones in the letters range. If you look at the dimensions, they might appear to be chosen at random; in fact, they were chosen so that each step in size was the same percentage up or down, rather than a fixed jump in size of '1mm or 0.5mm'. In the smaller sizes of metric drills, those steps are too big - in the larger sizes, they're too small.
And as for metric threads . . .
I used to work in an engineering drawing office, and my boss Henry (the production engineer) was Swiss. He'd done his degree in production engineering in Switzerland, and told me about a lecture they'd had on thread forms. The professor put a HUGE silhouette up on the projection screen, showing the profile of a Whitworth thread (about 6 feet from top to bottom), with all the dimensions and radii marked up, and went through it point by point.
He summed up by saying that Sir Joseph Whitworth (who he described as an engineering genius) had done such a perfect analysis of the loads on screw threads that nobody had ever designed a stronger bi-directional thread form than that. Then he put up the silhouette of the Metric threadform, on the same scale, beside the Whitworth - and Henry said he cringed at the sight of it!
The professor went through the details of the Metric threadform like a devouring flame, absolutely savaging it on every aspect. Finally, one of the students asked him the obvious question; what were the positive points about the Metric thread? He got the blistering answer:
"It only has ONE point in its favour!", the professor barked, "It's CHEAP! And I am utterly ashamed that so many fine and precision engineering companies in Switzerland use such a crude design of thread, which belongs in the field of cheap toys for babies!"
It's worth noting that, in many specialist fields, particularly where you need a thread which engages easily and reliably, the Whitworth thread is still in use. For example, if you have a tripod for a camera, the screw thread used on it is a Whitworth thread, and Whitworth threads are also used on the supports for the massive and heavy overhead lights used in theatres.
 

TarryJack

Member
Dec 27, 2020
15
12
77
Buxton, Derbyshire
With electronic calculators ten's powers were a lot easier to handle.
Actually, electronic calculators do NOT work in decimals; like all computers, they work in binary code - so they all have to convert those binary numbers to decimal to display them. That means they could just as easily convert the binary code to show the answer in feet and inches! The only change required would be a different number inserted in the software as the conversion factor.
 

TarryJack

Member
Dec 27, 2020
15
12
77
Buxton, Derbyshire
Go on, then - ask somebody in their 20s or 30s how tall their significant other is, and see how many tell you "She's 5 foot 2", or "He's 6 foot 1" . . . and don't have a clue how tall they are in metres! Or try asking a car owner what the fuel consumption is, and you'll get the answer in 'miles per gallon'!
Or, if you like living dangerously, ask the barmaid in your local for a half litre of beer . . . and get ready to duck!
 
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Gary Elson

Full Member
Feb 27, 2007
214
201
59
Bulkington Warwickshire
Hey
Interestingly I used to lay hedges too
The measurement is actually at your finger tips
Put your first stake in the hedge put your elbow against the first stake and hold the next stake in the same hand , as you drive it into the hedge that’s a cubit spacing the two stakes two I f these make a yard 44 cubits makes a chain - a days work
I now teach measurement and inspection to engineering students and our first lesson is where measurement systems originate from
 
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TarryJack

Member
Dec 27, 2020
15
12
77
Buxton, Derbyshire
Our local, pre-covid, always put half a litre in the pint glass but charged for a pint if you let them get away with it.
I dunno about you, but I'd call that a crime against humanity! And it puts me in mind of an old Andy Capp cartoon I saw, years ago. Andy's in the pub and the barman serves him a 'pint' like that. Andy looks at that barman and says:
"I could tell youse how to sell a lot more beer, wack."
"You could?", says the barman; "How?"
Andy grabs him by the scruff of his throat and drags him half way over the bar until their noses are practically touching, and whispers:
"Fill the flipping glasses!"
:))
 
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TarryJack

Member
Dec 27, 2020
15
12
77
Buxton, Derbyshire
Hey
Interestingly I used to lay hedges too
The measurement is actually at your finger tips
Put your first stake in the hedge put your elbow against the first stake and hold the next stake in the same hand , as you drive it into the hedge that’s a cubit spacing the two stakes two I f these make a yard 44 cubits makes a chain - a days work
I now teach measurement and inspection to engineering students and our first lesson is where measurement systems originate from
I read an account by a Brit who moved to Provence, and had a local firm of builders doing repairs to his house. He was puzzled by the measurements they were using, and finally realised they were using the old pre-Napoleonic measurements, based on the width of a man's thumb, the length of his foot, and span of his outstretched arms, etc - just like ours!
He said he did ask them what they thought about the metric system - but he said he wasn't sure what the answer was "because I couldn't find that word in my French / English dictionary!"
 

TLM

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Nov 16, 2019
3,092
1,624
Vantaa, Finland
Actually, electronic calculators do NOT work in decimals; like all computers, they work in binary code
You tell me, the first time I worked with computers was around 1973. Actually I also said it made it easier to not mix up powers of ten, they did exactly that. :D
 

TLM

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Nov 16, 2019
3,092
1,624
Vantaa, Finland
Ah, the old days, punch cards and paper tapes, bootstrap on toggle keys
Just a few weeks ago I showed #1 son a roll of punched tape and asked what it was. He did not know and it took some convincing that the paper tape actually had had something to do with computers. Cards did not fare any better.

I do remember we had to do binary math and were taught the circuits that realized some of the functions. I do not want to go back to that though being 50 years younger is kind of tempting.

It's long ago that I have reverted to a "black box" philosophy on computers, if I input this and there is reliable deterministic output I am going to be happy. There is no going back to abaci.
 

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