One mil = .001". One millimeter = .0254". I told one of my suppliers they could probably sell more 3 and 6mm PVC if they advertised it for what it is and not 3 and 6 mil. Vinyl is commonly measured in mils. Sheet products are commonly measured in millimeters. many machinists now avoid the use of "mil" because that term is also a handy slang for the millimeter.
Posted by jack wills (Member # 521) on :
Whatever happened to thousandths of an inch and tenths of a thousandth. At least that was measurable when I was a tool maker into decibles and inches.
Edited: When setting up milling machinery for cutting gears it was necessary also to get yer trig guides correct. I have no idea where millimeters would play in gearing on a static milling setup. (non CNC). I'm talking the 60's...pre CNC.
[ March 06, 2010, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: jack wills ]
Posted by Joey Madden (Member # 1192) on :
Actually Jack that terminology is still used across America by machine shops and tool makers
Posted by Graham Parsons (Member # 1129) on :
'Tis interesting. Until I moved to North America, I'd never heard of 'mil' - everything was either "thousandths of an inch" (which as every European knows, is terribly out of date ) or "millimeters". Although Canada is supposedly a metricated country, our close proximity to the U.S. means we have to deal with a mixture of both I'm too old to be this confused...
Posted by jack wills (Member # 521) on :
Good answer Graham...
Posted by Joey Madden (Member # 1192) on :
Graham, when I was in grammar schools, the teacher thought I was European but I told her it was just a ice cream pop in my pants pocket.
Posted by Weston Pulley (Member # 10330) on :
Living in Canada, you really need to know metric and standard.
I was taught metric all through high school and then had to learn standard while taking architectural drafting course in college. After graduating I got a drafting position at a Canadian Forces Base and had to draw in metric.
Posted by Dave Grundy (Member # 103) on :
I'm curious..what is "standard"?
Is it something other than farenheight for temps?
Is it something other than inches and feet and yards for measurement?
As much as I opposed Metric in Canada when it was introduced..it is working well for us.. Most of the world uses metric..We have adapted too
Posted by Chuck Churchill (Member # 68) on :
When applying for sign permits here the city building departments want all the dimensions on the drawings in metric (eg...square metres). If you have to talk to them about the application they usually want to talk in the English measurement system (eg...sq.ft.).
Ontario sells gas in litres and our streets are measured in kilometres (as are the vehicles odometers and spedometers). But if you go to buy a car the salesman will tell you how good of gas milage it will get in miles per gallon. Go figure!
Posted by Chuck Peterson (Member # 70) on :
I was wrong. A Millimeter is .0397", not .0254 but who's counting.
Posted by Dana Stanley (Member # 6786) on :
As patriotic as I am I embraced the metric system, as 10ths are much easier than 64ths. Sadly it hasn't completely caught on here in the US. When I was just 15 years old I was promised 2 things the metric system and social security. I probably wont get the full benefit of either in my life time. There is a song (every mothers son) I think it was buy the Animals. It has a line that says , some day will never come, how true! That came out around the time they made those other promises.
[ March 07, 2010, 07:30 PM: Message edited by: Dana Stanley ]
Posted by Dale Feicke (Member # 767) on :
I was under the impression that the metric system had never caught on here in the US, and had basically been abandoned for the good old inches and feet.
Even though many products are sold with metric measurements, I thought we dealt with this, just because most of the rest of the world was on the decimal system.
No??....
[ March 09, 2010, 06:03 PM: Message edited by: Dale Feicke ]
Posted by Glenn Taylor (Member # 162) on :
A few weeks ago I ordered 2 quarts of ink from Nazdar. That is when I learned that they no longer sell in Imperial measurements. Ink is now sold in liters.
The two liters arrived the next day. I popped one open and looked inside. The can was only about 2/3's full. Even though the price was lower, I felt cheated. Doing a little mathematical converting confirmed. Metric cost more.
What is worse is that the ink will dry faster on its own in the can when its only 2/3s full instead of completely full. So much for bothering to stock up.
Posted by Dana Stanley (Member # 6786) on :
Well that's just silly. If the cans are QT cans then until they retool for liters why wouldn't they sell by the QT!
[ March 09, 2010, 08:18 PM: Message edited by: Dana Stanley ]
Posted by Mark Matyjakowski (Member # 294) on :
a quart is .25 gallons a liter is .26 gallons if they sold you a quart can 2/3's full and called it a liter, you did get cheated
Posted by Deb Fowler (Member # 1039) on :
when my son's father repaired Harleys he loved the American measurements so he wouldn't work on anything foreign if he could help it.
Posted by Ian Stewart-Koster (Member # 3500) on :
Over here, it's different again...your American measurements always had me stumped!
A litre is a litre- 1000ml- which is 4 cups of 250 ml.
A pint here used to be 568 ml, until they metricated it and then a pint became 600ml. You still can get milk by the 600 ml (1 pint) carton.
A quart then was 2 pints or 1200ml now, instead of the 1136ml which it used to be, and they dropped quarts off being used a long time ago, in favour of litres at 1000ml.
A gallon stayed at about 4.545 litres- which was 4 quarts in the former variation, but it was a still a gallon, (and if it was water, it still weighed 10 pounds) and or pints add up to it, because they wouldn't!
1 litre of water weights 1 kg.
I have no idea why USA pints and gallons were smaller Australian pints & gallons, but you always had to take the location of the teller into account if you wanted to work out which they were talking about, or your volumes would be wrong.
The interesting thing though about our conversions from imperial to metric is the figure 22: for weight, there are near enough to 2.2 lbs to 1 kg, and for volume, converting gallons to litres involved dividing by 0.22 !
(edited to fix a figure)
[ March 10, 2010, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: Ian Stewart-Koster ]
Posted by Brad Ferguson (Member # 33) on :
I, too, am tired of hearing the term mil used as slang for millimeter. By a sign supplier, no less. They should know better, since they sell aluminum sheet in thousandths of an inch thicknesses. For example, .040" aluminum is forty thousandths , or forty mils. Though most machinists I know prefer the term thou (thousandth), instead of mil, mil is not yet archaic. Read the label on the Hefty Trash Bag box. The plastic film thickness is measured in mils.
We use a lot of 4mm PVC. Four mil PVC would be quite thin, unsuitable for most signs, I think, but a nice thickness for a very heavy trash bag. And three mil Dibond seems logistically impossible. Aren't the two aluminum skins of a Dibond sandwich nine or ten mils each?
But the discussion of liquid measures concerns me even more. Scotch bottles are not fifths anymore. I will admit that a fifth was a freakish measure, anyway. It just always seemed wrong to divide a gallon of whiskey five ways. Fourths, or quarts, seemed so much more logical. Better yet, just leave it as a gallon. But now, the bottles are all a bewildering variety of metric measurements. Yet a serving is still called a "shot" where I live. But is it really still a shot? Or has it quietly become a few milliliters less? Now that I think of it, cocktail glasses seem much smaller than they used to. I thought I was just getting bigger. I'm going to have a serious talk with my bartender.
Posted by Rodger MacMunn (Member # 4316) on :
In spite of being fairly fluent in metric, I despise it. Not that feet & inches are the answer either, but... 10 is not divisible by 3, or 4 ...... a quarter of a centimeter is 2 & a half millimetres. You still have fractions. This'll never happen, but rather than a "Base 10" system, a "Base 12" would make far more sense. Decimals are not always easier than fractions, but having a base number thats divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6 would level the field somewhat. Now there's a make-work project for world leaders......
Posted by Dale Feicke (Member # 767) on :
This whole conundrum makes me want to scream.
Pints and quarts become ml's and l's....gallon containers become 3 quart containers reshaped to look like gallons.
5 pound sugar packages become 4 pound packs, as well as flour, corn meal, etc.
NASCAR has several races that used to be 500's or 400's MILES.....that are now KILOMETERS. That makes them shorter. Meaning the spectators get screwed again. It's not bad enough that they basically shorten the race by counting the laps run under caution, but then they do this also. Just another reason I seldom watch anymore.
And all these manufacturers and purveyors of products and services are loving it, because in the midst of all the confusion they're creating for us, they are making more money, by selling or giving us less.....for the same amount of money.
Where does it end?? I considered selling my 4 X 8's, but giving them a sheet of MDO cut down to 3 and a half X 7 and a half.....but I haven't yet figured out what to do with the cut-off's.
[ March 12, 2010, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: Dale Feicke ]
Posted by David Fisher (Member # 107) on :
The US has a decimal currency system. Apart from tooling, why is a decimal measurement system such a hard idea to get used to?
Posted by Miles Cullinane (Member # 980) on :
Glenn Over here I buy my inks from the UK and the cans are 5 litres but sometimes they are full and sometimes not but the reason is very clear. they sell by WEIGHT not quantity so with some colours they are denser so fill less of the can. so I order 5 kilogrammes of a colour which comes in a 5 litre can but may be only up to the 4 litres level.
You weren't cheated, just try weighting them and they will all weight the same irregardless of the colour.
Also I am working using both systems as the switch over to Metric still hasn't got me to change my name. Posted by Bill Davidson (Member # 531) on :
Coming to Oz I had to do drafting in mm. Terminology is either "metric" OR "imperial"! One Millimeter is about . . this big!
Posted by Dana Stanley (Member # 6786) on :
I think Rodger has the solution for sure. 12ths . It's all so clear to me now! It won't be metric or sae. Maybe the nwo system!
Posted by Chuck Peterson (Member # 70) on :
I actually own a yardstick that has inches divided into thirds and sixths. I have no idea why.
Posted by Jon Jantz (Member # 6137) on :
Hahaha, Miles....
Kilometers Cullinane just doesn't have the same ring to it...
Posted by Ian Stewart-Koster (Member # 3500) on :
I've got a yardstick like that, too- Chuck. I was told it was made for the sewing/seamstressing/tailoring industry.
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) or "millimeters". Although Canada is supposedly a metricated country, our close proximity to the U.S. means we have to deal with a mixture of both ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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