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I used to love the metric system because of the easy use of dividing by 10. Seemed natural, it was the same number of fingers I had before I became a woodworker.

This guy has top-tier humor. It was one blow after the other, delivered in the most matter-of-fact voice, that had me chortling. Subscribed.

Favorite metric system quote is by Josh Bazell. In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade-which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. ... Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go f**k yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.”

I must confess that I was not enthusiastic when we changed from imperial to metric units in the U.K. However forty years on I find I make less measuring mistakes using the metric system and relieved that I don’t need three types of spanners to work on my car! I look back and wonder what the fuss was about.

As a Canadian, it's even worse up here. We oscillate between metric and imperial so frequently, you'd think we were experiencing convulsions. I love the humorous approach to this subject.

I spent 45 years as a machine designer. The SI (System of Units), the official name for the "metric system", is by far simpler than the Imperial System (Customary Units of Measure in the USA). Using the SI System is like learning and becoming fluent in a second language. Once you understand it you can switch back and forth without too much trouble. It's really very easy to learn and way less confusing.

As an American, I was amazed by the ease of calculating volume by size and also the weight. 1ml(of water) is 1 cubic centimeters, which is one gram or in larger terms 1 liter of water is 1000 cubic cm and 1 kilo. Not necessarily as easy if you are looking for the wight of something other than water, but volume still works. Without looking it up, how many gallons are in a cubic foot?

Being a Brit. I drive in miles and run in km. I drink litres or water and pints of milk. I lift 12kg weights because I want to loose about a stone in weight. When I make a loaf of bread the recipe in my head is 340g(ml) of water and 3.5 cups of flour. When I buy tape measure it has meters on one side and feet on the other. I use both sides.

I'm old enough that converting to metric is easy on paper, but trying to re-train my mind to visualize things in anything but inches, feet, and yards is going to be a challenge.

I prefer metric by a mile.

As I don't live in USA, Liberia or Myanmar I use metrics. But when I am working with a folding ruler I can choose inch or mm. Which is good for measuring, when the hole might not be whole mm but linstead ines up with the inch side of the ruler. Almost all folding rulers in Sweden only uses mm but you can still find the ones with both inches and mm, my favourite ones. Thank you for helping with the fast reading in inches.

As an engineer, I've been waiting for the metric switchover for decades. Let's do it already! It will save us so many avoidable conversion mistakes, and save money on new machines also.

I'm from the Czech Republic and while I got mostly used to the US lengths and weights thanks to watching all the cool American bushcraft stuff, I always felt a bit sad that you guys didn't moved to the metric system. The ease of multiplying or dividing by 10 let's my simple brain to do other things. :D

I’m from the UK & I remember our conversion to metric. It was a great move. I took my scuba instructors exam, I used metric for the physics portion, most others used imperial. I finished about an hour before everyone else (generally scoring higher).

I'm a Brit and we officially went metric in 1972 but I was brought up on imperial measurements so I am now fully bilingual. The metric system is so much easier to use especially, since we can use calculators that all count in tens. In 1972 I worked for a contractor who was building a large slab sided office block, the lads on site couldn't set the windows out because one side of the building appeared longer than the other according to the dimensions, which were imperial with fractions down to 1/8". it was my job to check the dimensions and it took me all day adding multiple different fractions and even then having done it many times I could only come up with a consensus of what it should be. Had it been in metric it would have taken me 5 minutes with a calculator or 10minutes long-hand to have arrived at the answer. One other advantage of the metric system is the cross relationship between units such that 1 cubic metre of water = 1 Tonne (approximately 1ton), 1 litre of water = 1 kilogram, 1000ltrs = 1 cubic metre etc. It really doesn't matter what units you use so long as the result is the same, will it fit, how heavy etc? But once you start using the metric system its obvious simplicity will shine through. Those that have the hardest time are those that have to constantly translate between the two systems. Its like a language if you think in the language you are speaking then it is easier.

Say SN I was raise on the metric system and when I moved to the US I had to adjust to inches, feet, yards, pints, quarts...etc. I use the metric system on my designs and also also created a metric inch which is 25.0 mm instead of 25.4 mm and I love it. it makes all my calculations easy to go back and forth.

As a hobbyist boat builder, most of my work is done in metric. Honestly, I have always hated adding, multiplying, subtracting, and dividing fractions. It is a serious pain and takes far longer than just learning to use the metric system.

Your script writing in this video is amazing. It is ironic, smart. really good. I envy your talent.

I design custom furniture/cabinetry, and my CAD software changes between inches and mm with the push of a button. When we go to "Spec" a part, everything is converted to mm, and any spec notes to the factory have to be given in mm. This is in Florida.

Canadian here. Almost everything is in metric, but body height and weight still tends to be imperial. My daughter is learning Kg and Cm, but for me, it’s still Lbs and Ft. Everything else, is metric… except vehicles. You need both metric and imperial sockets and wrenches as half the bolts are metric and the other half are imperial…

A funny thing is that although almost everything over here is measured in SI units (that's why you easily can calculate that one cubic meter = 1000 liter etc.), we also have traces of imperial. One common example is computer screens, we buy them in 15, 21, 27 inches - that's just the international standard for them 🙃 No-one knows exactly what it means but we know what screen size we're expecting.

I grew up when Australia converted from Imperial to Metric, my Mum took advantage of it (for a short while) by explaining to the police officer who pulled her over for doing 100kph (60mph) in a 60 kph zone that she was only obeying the speed sign that said 60:)

UK here. I use both systems, depending on which is closest and which is easier to remember at the time.

Im a product designer and can use both inches and mm for length to design easily. Go between, use fraction on the inch stuff I know all the decimals to the 16th off my head. But aside from psi I’m pretty much using all other units or combinations of units in metric

I grew up metric but have used inches for decades since moving to the US; years in the construction industry certainly helped that along. I now find myself using millimeters when precision is required and feet and inches for rougher work. What really has me scratching my head is decimal inches, especially rulers with sixteenths on one side and tenths on the other. A trap for the unwary if I ever saw one.

I’ve used inches and fractions almost forever in my workshop. But during my last project building a desk, I got real tired of adding fractions like 3/8 + 1/4 + 3/16 to get a total I need to make a cut. I whipped out my metric tape measure and almost never looked back. I reduced my scrapped cuts as well! 1:49

The U.S. is going metric, but they're doing it slowly: inch by inch.

Here in the UK we operate a mishmash of metric and imperial.Our money is metric (has been since 1971)we sell petrol and diesel in litres but we measure road distances and speed in miles and miles per hour,and we sell beer and cider from the pump in pubs in pints but bottled beer is often sold in half litres.Like i said a mishmash since we don't seem to have grasped metric fully.

I’m retired now, but I still remember the horror of starting my first job and finding out everything was done in ‘imperial’ units. Virtually my entire education (in Canada) was done in metric, and by the time I finished university all day to day measurements were in metric units. However, all my company’s customers were US, and all requirements were in imperial units, well that is to say US measurements as they were a bit different than the British measurements we used to use - just to make it even more messed up. Now that I am retired and dabbling in a bit of woodworking, I tend to stay with the US units as that’s what all the tools are. However, I am seriously considering just going all metric for future projects, I think once I get started, I will never look back. And in some ways the USA is fully metric. A inch is defined as exactly 2.54 cm and a pound is exactly 0.45359237 kg. All non metric measurements are actually defined precisely to their metric counter part, and it is the metric measurement that is related to some fundamental physical constant.

I love that I, as a Swedish bought up in the metric system, took almost the entire video to notice that he has a Sjöberg workbench. Sjöberg is an incredible swedish name, and the bench is most probably also very metric. That beein said, we sometimes actually use inches for our lumber. So I guess the imperial to inch conversion goes both ways =D

Dude, you had me with that moon landing picture 😂

I have both imperial and metric on my tape measure. When taking a rough measurement, I pick whichever number is closest - unless I have my glasses on...

I was born and raised in the US and now live in Canada. I comfortably switch between imperial and metric; sometimes within the same project. For certain though any time I need to find the center of something, I use metric. Division of whole numbers beats fractions any day.

"10 dollars in the average Americans saving account", outstanding move!

I didn't know i watched some videos from you, untill i noticet the most cleaned up and ordert workplace on youtube.

I am already a staunch metric user, much to the chagrin of my family and coworkers. My car and GPS are set to metric, I do all of my work in metric (converting only at the beginning and end as absolutely necessary), and, as a bonus, I use the 24 hour clock. Despite all of the complaints I get, I can guarantee that my work is faster and more accurate because I use metric.

I bought a fully metric tape measure for work doing HVAC. The other guys give me a hard time about it but it's easier to divide 120cm into two or three parts than it is 47.2441 inches. I regularly need to center mini split heads on a wall or between windows and it saves so much time and mental effort. They told me all the tricks for finding half with standard but i dont even need them with metric. It's also a smaller scale so more ability to be accurate. I started using metric for 3d printing modeling. Fusion 360 was set default to metric so I tried it. I'll never go back now. I still use standard on new construction jobs because there's standards for stud spacing etc. but I use metric whenever I can.

As a flight mechanic it would be a 100 times easier if the American engines were designed for metric

The writing for this video is insanely good and only made better by the calm dry delivery of so many of the jokes which you use to connect between each of the real serious points you bring up, phenominal.

I bought a brand new motorcycle last year. It's made by Harley-Davidson... and it shows the displacement in CC's. As someone who spends a lot of time making technical drawings, I really wish we could switch to metric.

This was the most well written content you ever produced. Straight up, 6 minutes of giggling. I guess base 60 won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

The irony is the US already has switched to metric, we did a long time ago. The formal definition of an inch is EXACTLY 2.54 cm. In other words, the inch is already defined in terms of the metric system. And the same applies for all the "English" units we use. We're just running the metric system with a texture pack over top of it.

Nice video. England ( part of the UK ) has been metric since the 70's BUT our road signs are still in imperial miles and yards, even new ones because most people haven't got their heads around how far a kilometer is yet. Just a thought.

Don't think I'll ever feel comfortable thinking about room temperature (or outside air temp) in anything but F. Ditto for speed of my car. However, the field of 3D printing and CAD has been metric for quite some time, and I don't measure these parts in "inches". Cooking recipes are STILL in teaspoons, tablespoons, and oz's. Gas used to be sold in liters until the parts for setting pumps for gas prices over $1/gallon! HFT has VERY FEW tape measures in metric! Ditto for other tool makers btw.

As a Canadian who grew up using Imperial measurements and then had to learn to convert to Metric, it wasn't hard to do. I use both systems interchangeably.

Up here in Canada we officially use metric, but you will still find a lot of imperial units around as well. Monitors and and Tv screens are measured in inches, and you will very rarely find someone who will give their height in CM, almost always feet and inches. The weirdest thing to me though is wheel/tire sizes. Wheels are measured in inches, so tire sizes will be partially metric, and partially imperial, with a ratio of one of them thrown in there for good measure. 215/60R16 means the tire is 215mm wide, with a sidewall that is 60% of 215mm, and it fits on a wheel that is 16 inches in diameter and about 6.5 inches wide, but then the offset of the wheel is MM again. It makes perfect sense if you don't think about it at all. 😂

When I was in elementary school, 50 years ago, we were told the metric system was what was going to replace the Imperial/US Customary system. I think that’s the key word in all this “customary.” Our grandmothers and great grandmothers passed family recipes to us in cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons; taught sewing with inches; grandfathers and fathers up to my father at least passed on carpentry skills all in the Imperial system. It was simply the custom. There were still tape measures in Imperial only 50 years ago; no metric markings. (Do they make those any more?) I love the metric system; I hate working in fractions. However, I am grateful to my father, genius that he was (man could figure the rise and run to cut stairs in his head), who insisted I be able to do the calculation of fractions in my head, too. It’s a skill for which I am most grateful.

I use decimal inches when model making. Since the original drawings were in feet and inches this works well. I have a decimal inches ruler that i use when making the model parts which makes things really easy. I always thought it was funny how metric temperatures were less precise that F. One Celsius degree equals two or three degrees of ours, is that better?

I believe that in the 1960s there was a big push in the USA to switch the metric system which was quashed by the Society of Automotive Engineers. I think that is fascinating since, as you pointed out, American cars are now mostly metric.

It's funny because here in Germany we always use the metric system but on our rulers we also had the inches (we call it Zoll which translates customs) . It was very confusing for us some of us back then. But we also got in touch with it back then.

Wait until you try doing a renovation with metric drywall which is 1200 x 2400 mm. About 47“ x 94“. All the stud space will be different. What’s the cost of converting all lumber and drywall sheet and plywood sheet factories to metric? In Canada we still use 4 x 8 sheets and 2 x 4 lumber.

i live in Scotland, i have grown up to use both inches and millimeters. done a lot of renovation work to old houses that have inches for the timber measurements, you ask for timber in inches but different to USA (UK is 4x2 but USA 2x4) but they do have the mm size on hand for timber if you need it. i like how the UK uses MPH, it feels faster as takes more effort to get to a speed where as KPH just turns into daft numbers (like for super cars, 200mph is 322kph. going over 300 is silly to me unless its in MPH then its like, wow, thats shifting). use mm and inches but keep MPH is what i would recommend lol

As an engineer, I love this 😂

Funnily enough, I was born, raised and educated in the metric system (I am from France), and yet, when I work in my workshop, I primarily used the imperial system. I found the fractions fun to use... That said, who cares what system you use as long as you have fun building stuff.

The distance between point A and point B is the same whatever measurement system you use. Whatever system works for you is the one you should use.

Im a carpenter in Ireland. our plywood still comes in 8ftx4ft sheets and our plasterboard comes in 1.2mx 2.44m Osb could be eather. because of this sometimes my joist spacing is 16 inch and sometimes its 0.4m

Already metric and loving it! Love how it's so transferable through the other units, e.g. 10cm cube is a litre of water. Which is a kg. Oh, and science uses it, SI

Here in Australia the older generation like my father, were brought up on the imperial system. So I know how hard it is to change from something that was taught from a young age. But it does make me laugh when my dad has to add up 5ft 9 53/64th in + 3ft 7/16th in + 9ft 3/32 in , and all I have to do is 1774mm + 926mm +2822mm 🙂

The instructions on the bottle of powdered beef stock say that 250ml water + 1 tsp powder = 1 cup we metricized people mix and match as required - height in feet, distance in kilometres

South Africa went metric in 1968. I remember the petrol bowsers were changed from 40c per gallon to 9c per litre. I tried working on a project where the plan was measured in inches. When you see 6 5/8” on the plan is where you say enough! 😄

In the early 1960's there was a serious effort to convert the U.S. to the metric system. I remember being in grade school during that time and was educated in the metric system for about 2 years. Then they abruptly stopped. Well, my later education as an engineer; physics and chemistry classes were all metric. It's like growing up learning 2 different languages at home. As an old man, I think and function equally well with either system............

Dear Mr Nubs -- Thank you for your always valuable, always informative woodworking videos. We have all learned much from you. We also love your style of delivery and humor. Three years before I retired, intending to move to the Philippines, I decided to switch from US measurements to metric -- especially for temperature (weather) and distance (driving). My digital thermometer happily accomated me with a flip of the switch on the back side. (My Volvo, however, stayed locked in miles.) In the woodshop, a surprise! My Stanley tape measure already spoke metric. Never noticed that before, except when it got in the way. Here's my beef -- When my almost 70 yo eyes look down on the tape measure, I can easily see the markings for sixteenths, eighths, quarter inches, etc. The length of the dash at the edge of the tape makes it easy to determine. The metric side (and my other metric-only measures) shows each mark with a dash of the same length, except for the half centimeter dash which is longer. Problem is, the mm marks are closer together than sixteenths. And with my astigmatism and trifocal lenses it's really hard to tell the difference between 86 mm and 87 mm or 42 and 43 and so on. Dashes of different lengths make the Inches measurements easier to read. Still, I persevere -- taking my glasses off and getting right down on the ruler when precise metric measurements are needed, which is to say constantly. Please use your 'influence' to persuade metric measurement instrument providers to adopt gradations in their dashes. Picture one span of a suspension bridge for guidance, from short dashes at the beginning to the long dash in the middle, then shortening down again until the next centimeter. Thank you very much, Mr. Nubs. You are doing every metric user over the age of 40 a great service.

I recently got into 3d printing. Everything is metric by default in that field. I love it. I don't feel like I'm swimming against the current like I do in other mechanical endeavors in the US. I'm really tired of people resisting a much easier method because... Because what exactly I don't know. Change is scary I guess.

Good point. I have been using metric in my shop for years and find it much easier when building projects and cutting material to size. Why is this you ask? well, many don't realize that the materials we have been using for years are actually produced in metric sizes. Frustrated me when I was doing all I could to get my projects right and doing the math on a close enough scale that they would always come up not quite right in the end. I have many metric tools in my shop that I use on my channel as well. Seriously considering the full conversion in my shop for good. Thanks again. Awesome video.

As a Aussie with an American mother I grew up confused as hell with measurements, on top of that I often failed my spelling tests because I leave the U out of color...I mean colour. Now I fix metric Airbus aircraft in the morning and Imperial Boeing's in the afternoon. 🙄🇦🇺

I’m Canadian, grew up as a kid in the SI world, adopted into the metric system when Canada flipped and am equally confident in using either system. However, I frame houses 16” on center, using 2x4s, 2x6s, 2x8s etc, do most cutting with either a 8 1/4” or 10” blade on my power tools. When I drive to the local hardware store I keep to an average posted speed of 60 km/hr over a driving distance of 12 kilometres, all the while wondering if the weight of the load of 5/8” plywood will make the trailer tongue weight exceed its maximum rating of 200lbs. Of course during the drive home my wife phones and asks if I could pick up a pound of ground beef, 2 litres of 3% milk, 150-200g of freshly sliced smoked ham. I said “of course I will, but first have to stop and get some gas - hey, did you notice gas prices dropped to 173.9 a litre today!?!?!” Her response: “ great, now we have a few extra toonies to take with us on our trip to the States tomorrow!” And, finally “Yes dear I’ll remember to drive at their posted speed limit of 60mph!” Now I ask you, do I qualify for dual-citizenship, or do I simply have to accept the fact I live in a global world.

Inches is what size a screen comes in. Not sure why anyone would think the diagonal length is relevant to screen size, but here we are.

Already there - in Canada!! Go metric - had a hard time letting go of 2 x 4s but . . . I'm on track now.

The inch was re-sized and defined as 2.54cm very early in the 20th century. Although, I think it was "officially" set as such in 1959. For the most part, all the precision work in the industrial age has been on an inch that is really metric in disguise

Went totally metric when about 2 years ago when I finally changed to Celsius because I did a total immersion language so I could feel comfortable in my second language. The hardest part of that was actually the fact that I needed to convert the speed and distances for when I described a road trip because I was so ueed to giving location as being the amount of time it took to get there not taking into account that I was telling that to someone was using the Autobahn which made something like its an hour away from Chicago a meaningless statement.😅

Well done guys! Right up there with Liberia and Myanmar. And some of you can even correctly name and point out your own capital city on a map! Amazing!

Hi james, This is a topic that hits close to home. As a kid, I grew up in the US, and everything around me was "imperial", save for the occasional science lesson. When I was in about 5th grade, that was around the time the push that Carter made to switch to metric made its way to classrooms. I genuinely think the lessons were intentionally convoluted to make people not want to switch to metric. Because, fast forward to a few years later, I left the US in my late 20's (almost 35 years ago now), and slowly "adapted" to metric. First out of necessity, then I kind of became "bilingual" for a long while. Then I started doing a lot of DIY and creeping into woodworking projects, and as I got there I though "Why the HELL would anyone not want to use metric"? I returned to the US to help a friend of mine with renovation of his house that had been flooded and damaged. I had to go and buy tape measures that were metric. His Rubi Tile saw was imperial, I just ignored it and did everything in metric. Had to get a T-Square that was dual. But it comes down to this... on a tape measure with all these tiny marks... I still look and go "What's bigger, 7/8ths or 9/16ths". Now that may make me sound like a moron, but I can tell you this... there is no doubt in my mind when I see 238mm and 232mm as to which is bigger. Not to mention where to find it on the bloody ruler. I have since lived in Australia, the UK (they are weird too... not really fully metric as the roads are still signed in miles per hour for speed, but km for distance!? And gasoline is sold in liters, but the tanks are measured in Imperial Gallons (bigger than the "US gallon"), Singapore, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Japan and the Maldives (and by iived, spent at least 1 year there). I've been in Japan now for more than 15 years. Point here is, don't fight metric. Smartest thing I ever took up. Just took some time to "leave behind" the old ways. I would NEVER go back now. Metric just makes too much sense. (And you still have fractions if you REALLY want in metric, like 235 1/2mm or better stated 235.5mm... see where this is going? Scott from Japan

I grew up in Singapore where we uses Metric. Watching and reading imperial is just about another measuring systems. Hence no big deal. Now a days smart phone are so convenient and conversion is just a click away. What I felt really challenging is baking, where Cups and spoons were used rather than weight and volume which is much easier to follow. This is personal. 😊

I already have gone metric as an American. I’ve been criticized by some people in public for using millimeters and centimeters when describing the length of something’s.

I don’t really think about it anymore i go back and forth easily. My frustration is a lot of my tooling is in inches and more and more material is metric. When was the last time you got a 3/4” piece of plywood

as an american ive slowly learned metric ive got my phone set to C for temperature and i already am used to metric for other forms of measurement the main issue still is estimating based on sight and feel i still pull out the conversion factors mentally on occasion but im started to get better at it

Weirdly enough, the rigid but foldable device for measuring, usually made from wood, is called a "Zollstock" in German, literally "inch stick". A "Zoll" was a cut off piece of wood with a thickness of about 2 thumbs, whereas 12 Zoll made 1 Fuß, or foot. But then a Zoll varied between 2.5 cm in Hesse and 3.7662 cm in Prussia, with Baden and Switzerland (where 10 Zoll made a Fuß) somewhere in between. We also had miles, varying from 7500 to 9000 m, or between 12000 and 24000 Fuß in other places. All in all, the metric system is a good thing...

I'm from the Netherlands, and If it wasn't for wheels, TV's, PC monitors and drivebays I'd probably never ever knew inches were a thing. It's kind of weird that we got so accustomed to the imperial system for certain devices. It was probably more convenient to stick with them as conversion would lead to even weirder numbers and more confusion.

Hey great info

All construction in Canada is Imperial but when I worked in a cabinet shop all measurements that came in were converted to millimeteres before any cabinets were build. I believe the reason was because the metric system does not need a learning curve. Depending on the skill level of the worker there was less chance of error plus there is no conversion needed within the system.

In South Africa we changed from imperial to metric in the mid 1960. I use both. Although metric is easier for calculating engineering subjects. My biggest downfall is I love to bake bread. Blows my brain when the recipes use cups , ounces , lbs etc. so much easier when it’s all in grams , litres and millilitres. 👍👍. We enjoy your videos.

Here in the UK we use both interchangeably, although I think imperial is becoming less common in the younger generation. I'll use imperial for my height, weight, distances and speed, but metric for almost everything else. I like the ease of halving, say, 4 & 3/8 inches by doubling the denominator, but for any precise measurement I'm just much more comfortable in mm

The most fun (well, it's in the top 100) I had in my life was when my german friends and I got a can of tomato soup in Canada that had 368ml, 5 US fluid ounces and 4.3 imperial fluid ounces or something like that on the label. Our soup cans usually have 800 ml, which coincidentally is 800 g.

In 1975-1980 my job get my brought me to Dansk Standart Institut (DS) and there was an internatinal meeting about IS System . It is the system that was then adopted internally at DS office for units of measurement in the meter system. For all measuring units. The USA WAS ALSO THERE THEN. Europe and other metric countries, then had to change the size of tool and bolt head from17 mm to 16 mm on 10 mm bolt and 19 to 18 mm on 12 mm bolt. and then there were new standart called iso standard for boldts, but it never came through in practice. In Denmark they moved away from danske tommer (26,1545 mm)/ inches (25,4 mm) around 1960 and 10 years later.

6 Months ago I bought my first metric measuring tape... I find myself reaching for it more frequently. I'm also old enough to remember being in junior high and being forced to learn the metric system for science... Dividing by ten is not very hard! Cheers!

I made the switch to metric for all 'fine woodworking' projects from the start. All of my tapes, squares and straight edges are metric or dual measurement. I added a Wixey digital rule / gauge on my table saws and planer and keep a nice Mitutoyo caliper at the ready. I still reference approximates in imperial and use it for larger projects like cabinets or home repair just because most appliance schematics and accessories use imperial, but my life is loads easier using metric.

I'm from the UK and although I no longer use a fraction of a twelfth of my foot to measure my spanners, a very interesting video all the same.

That's what I've been saying, all of our common tools, meds, food packaging, etc. has metric measurements in addition to American measurements. The speedometer in cars has both. The only place you have to remember that we aren't metric is on the speed limit signs, bathroom scales, and weather reports

It's nuts and bolts that motivates me the most. An M8x40 bolt is 8mm in diameter and its thread is 40mm long. It's easy to stock a good range of common values.

Here in Puerto Rico: we sell gasoline (petrol) in liters, yet we sell milk and motor oil in quart, half gallon or gallon jugs (yet we ask for a liter of milk); speed is measured in miles per hour, yet distance is measured in kilometers and mileage is calculated in miles per gallon; cloth for sewing is sold by the yard; lumber is sold by inches and feet. In cooking: we use the 'spoon and cup' system. This is a partial list.

I use both. I design parts in the computer with MMS. I brew beer with grams of ingredients, but gallons of water. I adhere to the road laws in MPH. I did a project (construction) with some Aussies. Their blue prints are all metric (whether building something the size of a thimble, or the size of a stadium)...

A friend of mine, an old retired US furniture maker was here in Europe, and suddenly wanted to build a TV bench for his daughter living here, stuck with only metric tape measures, he hesitated, but finally said "Meh, its just numbers anyway", grabbed the tape measure and measured up the avalible space to a whole number, the TV to another, and the boards to one or the other and started building, once finished he said "I'm going to keep using metric, a millimeter is close enough for anything I do, and then I can always work with whole numbers on my tapemeasure", and that is how hard it is to switch to metric.

I’ve been using metric on personal projects for a while now. My only problem with using metric at work is that my metric tape measures seem to keep going missing off job sites, funny thing that.

I used to hate the metric system. Mainly because their odd sizes didn't fit correctly in the imperial tools I had at the time. But as I aged and started working on industrial machines for overseas, where everything on them is metric, I found it's a far easier method and can quickly be learned by anyone even a child. There are times now even at home where I'll prefer to use the metric system for my work around the house.

I'm a 60 year old American. I bought a metric tape measure to do some finish carpentry. It was awesome. Only one unit of measure, millimeters. Can you actually cut a board to 78 and 17/32nds of an inch? I work on cars once in a while so of course I own two sets of wrenches.

I really wonder now how do you study physics at school. There are lots of different kinds of measurement units (like force newtons that basically are kg*meter/(second^2)) which would be really difficult to use with feet, nipple distance, etc.

Hi Stumpy, coming from Australia I did my schooling and joinery apprenticeship in imperial. Australia went metric, for measurement around 1974 just as I became a tradesman. So I am conversant with both systems. I'm with you, metric is by far a simpler and more accurate way of working. Eventually all us old imperial dudes will be dead along with the system based on 12 with crazy fractions. Long live the metre!

You scripts are always pretty good but this one was great. A joke in almost every line and the dry delivery was just spot on, while still having the informative content and balanced takes that make this channel so great. I use both for woodworking and fabrication projects pretty interchangeably using whichever is the most convenient at the time. I do feel metric is overall a better system, particularly if you are doing anything which involves conversion between types of measurement. But imperial is great for rough work and eyeballing sizes. The only time I have strong feelings on systems of measurement is the American obsession with using "cups" as measurement in cooking. Use weight for solid materials like a sane person, Pounds and Ounces are fine it doesn't have to be grams, I can use imperial or convert to grams. But please stop measuring solids of varying density with a only loosely defined volume, it is the work of madness.

Metric is the official system of the US, but "customary" units are still in use. Some FM broadcast stations got a few extra feet when the FCC changed 300 feet to 100 meters.