I grew up using metric just enough to get me in trouble. For the most part, I have no need for it now but it keeps popping up. I hate it when I look for something on Amazon and some Chinaman describes his junk in cm or grams. I keep some links handy for quick reference that you might find useful.

Here's one for termperature conversions. I printed this one and keep it by my computer. It's very useful when some 24HR member from Australia talks about how hot it is. C to F conversion

Here's a link for calculators for about any metric conversion you'll ever need. I keep it at the top of my bookmarks. METRIC CONVERSION CALCULATOR

For a quick reference of unit to unit conversions, you might find this handy. I printed it. It's a web site for kids but aren't we all just that? UNIT CONVERSIONS

If you have other good converters, please post them.

454 grams in a pound, read a cereal box, commit to memory

A thousand grams is a kilo, a thousand grams is also a liter
But we call a liquid a gram an mL

2.2 lbs is a kilo

One gram of water is 1cc

Things yiu *should* just as every day knowledge.

Read and memorize labels. 12 oz pepsi can, 355 ml, ounce of sticky-icky 28-29 grams

This stuff separates the wise ass ine room schoolhouse [bleep] on here from the ones that ventured into the sciences and college. While Earl was shining his Moroso chrome valve covers on 350 Vega, Slumlord was in GenChem

A quick and dirty conversion for C to F is to double C and add 32 to get F. The further from freezing the more inaccurate it gets as you can see in your temp chart, but it's ofttimes close enough for a ballpark estimation.

The calculator on PCs and phones has a conversion function for length, weight, and volume.

Here is a downloadable unit converter called "Convert". I've use this for years, bot on my work desktop, and at home desktop. Handy as heck.

https://appmeas.co.uk/resources/free-engineering-unit-conversion-calculator/

The convertors are handy for many things. Like concrete volumes and square area w/thickness

But…should be in most dude’s heads unless they sold life insurance and watched jimmy stewart movies their whole life 😃

At my age, something that I use a few times a year isn't going to stay in my head long.

Not so cut and dried. I think in thou and measure in mm, I think in lbs and weigh in kg...I travel in km and sweat litres in Celsius.


I shoot in yards and adjust in inches...rain falls in inches for everyone over fifty and mils for everyone under.

If you really want to get screwed around go buy a length of 2x4...what you will get is 45x90. And bolts are still available here with imperial heads and metric threads.


Solution...metrinch, and ignore the rest as the young bastards don't know what you are talking about and the old ones cannot remember anyway.

That looks to be a good one. Thanks.

I thought in kilometers while in 'Nam because that's what the maps used. Not so much since.

Temperature? I'm old enough that we were taught Centigrade, not Celcius. All I need to remember now is the jingle "Thirty's hot and twenty's nice. Ten is chilly and zero's ice."

The one that baffles me is energy/force. In rockets, pounds of thrust makes perfect sense to me. Rocket weighs X and so needs X+ to fly. Simple. Kilonewtons means zip to me.

I can convert when I have to. I can machine and thread metric if I have to but it is problematic because there's no metric support over here. You can't buy matric metal stock or taps and dies. Metric isn't so standardized from one country to the other. I have in my possession a metric tap that's a true bastard. It is neither metric not imperial. If you are born and taught using one system it's natural to you and that goes both ways.

What's the tap?

I have been told no matter how many languages you speak, you will always do math in your native language and then convert to the language that is appropriate at the time. Asked a friend of mine from Holland and he said he never thought about it but that is what he does. He said you also curse in your native language.

I use the calculator app on my phone. Gives you any conversion you need. Area, length, temp, volume....etc.

On my calculator app, it's the litte ruler icon.




keyboard input test

My career has had me use both, so I'm comfortable in both worlds. They're just units. That said it's MUCH easier to use decimal places in imperial than fractional measurements. Especially in programming. Therefore in programming I usually used metric as it was just orders of magnitude between units.

#define METER 1
#define KILOMETER "METER * 1e3"
#define CM "METER * 1e-2"
#define MM "METER * 1e-3"

I recently ordered some 5/16 square u-bolts that I couldn't find here. I thought they looked a little slim. They sent 7mm which is about 9/32. They were advertised as 5/16. I'd have returned them but I needed them and I was able to make it work. Cussed chinamen.

5/16 should be a bees dick under 8 mm...no wonder you weren't pleased.

I worked for and retired from TXDOT.

Many years ago we were required by Federal mandate to switch over to metric. We had hard and soft conversions. Which basically ment some things were in actual metric and some were rounded metric.

I remember converting old land surveys in Varas to English then to metric. The metric being almost the same number as the Vara was.

After several years of this somehow Metric was changed back English units. Sorta stupid because we were running pretty well with it.

Or you could just ask Google...

I have a “convert” app on my phone that covers most everything.

But a simple google search of “27.5 lbs to kilograms” will do it too.

But daily stuff I just know 454 grams per pound and 25.4 mm per inch and go from there.

IKs that tap a Whitworth, maybe, like the barrel thread on a Mauser rifle? I just bought a 55 degree threading guide and a 55 degree thread pitch gauge for grinding threading tools and checking the barrel threads I turn on the lathe. Fortunately, Whitworth threads are measured in "threads per inch". Weatherby Vanguard receivers have metric threads, so I turn an inch measured thread that's close, then chase the thread with an adjustable metric die and a 3 cornered file for a final fit.

Depends on your lifestyle.
Metric was in Australia for just over 30 years when my last artcle was published there and I never once submitted an article including metric measurements. It simply was not the written English I learned and was disaligned with the readership.

My profession was Printing and Packaging which adopted the metric system and embraced it, as it was so easy, every measurement being in 10's with errors and translations almost eliminated. 30 years there and back to English (albeit Americanised) for the next 20 years proved the superiority of metric system where measurement is the primary usage.

Read that as NOT liquids, gases or volumes.

A foot/pound meant something easy to learn and interpret.
A kilo/cm or Mtr was a useless comparison and its gets far worse when liguids and energy enteres the discussion.

Hmmmm- - - - -sounds a lot like the exotic dancer with the 96 inch bust- - - - - -she doesn't actually dance- - - -she just crawls out on stage and tries to stand up!

I can work very well in either/or.
I have problems switching back and forth (conversions), but manage to fumble my way through - to an acceptable level, usually.

Try to be fluent in both systems, not in conversion tricks.

Bruce

I'll stick to pounds, gallons, tons, ounces and tools in 1/8" increments... I freakin' HATE metric crap... And yes I know I have to deal with it in many modern vehicles, AG equipment etc., but all it does is raise my blood pressure...


Did I say that I freakin' HATE metric? Oh, yeah, I did..

About the only ones I seem to consistently use are: 1kg is 2.2lb, 25.4mm is an inch, 3.28ft to a meter.

I'm 75 and we lead a pretty simple life. I have no need to memorize a bunch of metric facts. I just need easy ways to convert when some idiot tries to push it down my throat. I don't care if metric is much simpler as I don't have to work with it.

This is America ....if God wanted us to be on the metric system there would have been 10 disciples ............

instead of 12.

^^^snork^^^
Plus, I think youse guys misspelled it: Metrick.

$1,000 dollars = 1 kilobuck

"Back in 1875 The US signed the Metre Convention, which basically committed the country to use the metric system. In return, French scientists sent two platinum-iridium cylinders that weigh 1kg to the US in 1889 (known by their designations K4 and K20 from a set of 40 identical objects that were produced and sent around the world). So even though everything you see and buy in the US is usually reported in pounds, all weights are traceable back to the K20 kilogram (by applying a conversion factor to get to pounds)."

Riddle me this:

The Celsius temp scale is 0 for freezing and 100 for boiling water. Fahrenheit is 32 and 212 respectively.

So one day I was lounging around in Nam and about 11 AM it was 47 on the Celsius thermometer. That's 116.6 F. According to Celsius that's only 3 degrees short of halfway to boiling. It's only 95.4 short of boiling on the F scale. Thing that really confused me was that I wasn't sweating.

How's that work in your head?

Perfectly stated... And, IIRC, it's one of the reasons we kicked the British outta New England a coupla centuries ago..

'twere it me, I'd find the midpoint on the Fahrenheit scale like you did on the Celsius, then compare the two, keeping in mind the doubling factor of Celsius i mentioned earlier...

On the sweating thing, I've no idea.

Don't over think this, I was being pesky.

There have been exceptions, but most of the people I have known that suck at the Metric System also suck at the Imperial System.

Could have been a faulty thermometer. I have been in 39 C overseas and it was overwhelming , and not talking a humid climate either.

Metric system is easy to use .

I am good with both. Tens years living/working abroad required it.

In that case, things that make you go hmmmm...

Stopping sweating can be a sign that you are going into heatstroke. Confusion too.

Or it was so dry and hot that your sweat was evaporating immediately as your body pushed it out.

47 C is pretty bloody hot.

FWIW metric was introduced here when I was a kid, so I grew up with both, and have never had an issue swapping back and forth.

One trap for young players is that the US measures aren't always the same as Imperial, so you can get tripped up. For example, an Imperial gallon is roughly 4.5 litres, while a US gallon is only about 3.8, so things like miles per gallon and so on can get confusing.

There's also other little traps like Imperial/US using the pound, which is a unit of weight, while metric uses a unit of mass.

Metric certainly makes it easier to do calculations though, especially for engineering/science.

How does liters to killimeters work?

It doesn’t.

I'm not sure where "over here" is, but you can sure as hell buy metric taps, dies, stock, nuts, bolts, measuring devices and everything else in the United States. Check the Grangers, MRC, or any other industrial supply catalog.

For fifty years now I have just been shaking my head in amazement at how confused, irrational, intimidated, illogical and just over the top crazy and misinformed people can be about something as simple and logical as the metric system.

Spark plug were metric threads in the late 1900's.

The metric hour is the most confusing.

I still prefer drams, gills, bushels, pecks, furlongs, leagues, chains, etc. Anything to be contrary.

The metric thing I really hate is pressures and torque

If I ever see another megapascale it will be too soon.

Heat stroke will kill you. One symptom is not sweating when it's that hot. You apparently didn't have other symptoms so that probably wasn't the your issue, but it's something to watch out for.

On my project in Qatar (50k workers in camp) we had flags with well known colors that allowed work, backed off work in stages and ended work on temperature. A large water bottle hanging from your belt was required basic PPE.

Under those hot and dry conditions fans only seem to blow hot air too, without any perceivable cooling effect.

As a side note, drinking beer under those conditions doesn't seem to get one as pissed as quickly. You gotta drink alot of water irrespective and especially if you're drinking alcohol. Actually you should avoid the alcohol all together, and coffee.

I thought Nam would've had high humidity.

The exact correct amount of beers is my explanation

No [bleep]

We are stuck folks, it's not going away.

The metric system is based on water, the size of the earth and the number 10.

10,000,000 meters from the North Pole to the Equator.

A cube 1cm on each side (1 cc) has a volume equal to 1 milliliter.

1 milliliter of water has a mass of 1 gram.

Temperature? At sea level water freezes at 0 centigrade and boils at 100.

Anyhoo…..

1 liter = 1,000 ml = 1,000cc = the volume of a cube 10cm on each side.

1kilometer =1,000 meters = 100,000 centimeters.

1 liter would fill a cube 0.00001 km on each side.

And…..

A 1km cube has a volume of 1,000,000,000,000,000 cc which is equal to 1,000,000,000,000 liters.

Hope this helps.

And……

I hope I did the math right.

I'm a tool and die maker since 1986

.03937 is all I ever need

My metrics:

A beer = 155ml

1/4 = 6mm bullet

161km = 100 miles because that the distance from Vandalia, OH to Indianapolis

It did indeed. I just remembered why I wasn’t sweating. I was packin’ a minigun. Shooting metric ammo I was.

And BTW, I was a member of the Silly Millimeter Division, aka 101st Airborne.