To all,
I agree with Dennis. It is better for him to use ifp in building until hard
metric parts become available. I had such experience long ago on a holiday
job. Then I commited an act of horrible ifp goonery. I used to translate
technical instructions from English, German and French to Dutch and of
course, I left out any "English" units in the translation where possible.
Then I got the instructions from an American manufacturer of drills.
Everything was in rock-hard ifp. I thought of metricating the lot but found
out that it would lead to awful and unworkable numerical values. So I had to
choose between two evils: use soft metric or keep the ifp. I did the last.
If Marcus has seen that translation he would have said: "What ifp goon did
this, using this trash in a Dutch translation? &*#@%&*!!!!!!" Yes, I was
that goon. I would have understood Marcus, because I was ashamed about
having had to do something like this. I swore that I would have revenge one
day. And now, thanks to the internet and this group, I can fight back at
last.
I steer clear of ifp and soft metric as much as possible, but in fact, I
would prefer the first over the latter.
Hard metric standardization is the ultimate answer.Then no-one who lives
in a metric country or who supports metric in general will have to use
wombat ever again,
Han
-----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: "Dennis Brownridge" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
An: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Gesendet: zaterdag 4 november 2000 00:56
Betreff: [USMA:8983] RE: building precision
> Marcus, I'm a diehard metric nerd. I use SI exclusively in all my classes
> and writings, and proselytize it to the point of obnoxiousness. But I have
> to tell you that, when I do building, I put away my metric tape and get
out
> my wombat tape because its easier, MUCH MUCH EASIER, given the fact that
> absolutely no metric building materials are available here. Construction
> workers are not metric ideologues. They want to get the job done as
> efficiently as possible, make some money, and go home.
> Let me explain one more time. If you are still not convinced, I can only
> suggest you go out and build your own building with all-wombat parts.
>
> I think most people on this list are used to working with small and/or
> precise things. But we need to understand that most people deal with big
> and/or imprecise things. There is no NEED or DESIRE to build buildings to
> millimeter precision. A perfect and smooth building is an UGLY building.
> Concrete block, stucco, tile, and exterior woodwork are SUPPOSED to be
rough
> and imperfect. In fact, people pay extra to to make them rougher!
>
> Concrete blocks and manufactured and laid to a precision of several
> millimeters (but not 1 mm). The spacings, like all modular spacings, are
> whole inches. While the location of a single block can vary several
> millimeters, the AVERAGE spacing must be very precise, because even a
small,
> CONSISTENT error (such as results from rounding off a soft-metric
> conversion), when multiplied by 100 blocks, becomes a big error. Is that
> clear?
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ma Be
> > >
> > On Thu, 2 Nov 2000 11:10:35 Dennis Brownridge wrote:
> > >Greg and Karl are correct--virtually nothing in building is
> > measured on the
> > >job to millimeter precision... That's a waste of time...
> >
> > I think that we've finally come to some agreement here, Dennis!
> > :-) However, I sort of dispute a little your sentence below.
> >
> > >Buildings CANNOT be designed, measured, or constructed to millimeter
> > >precision. Many of the components (block, brick, dimension
> > lumber) are not
> > >even manufactured to millimeter precision (although plywood is).
> >
> > If this is the current state of the industry, fine. But it seems
> > possible to "push the limits" when it comes to tolerances, so if
> > one *really* insisted on it I think it *could* be done. Now,
> > whether that was necessary is a different story... ;-)
> >
> > The
> > >dimensions on wombat architectural drawings are all whole inches...
> >
> > Perhaps in the US, but certainly not up here! I've seen quite a
> > few such drawings with fractions of inches in them.
> >
> > ...So drawing dimensions to the millimeter are about 25
> > >times more precise than needed. It is false precision, because the last
> > >digit is incorrect, whereas on an inch-foot drawing all digits are
> > >significant...
> >
> > Very well, then. If this is the case, Dennis, please explain to
> > us why you claim the sentence below.
> >
> > >HOWEVER, when building a soft-metric building with inch-foot
> > parts, you DO
> > >have to bother with extreme precision... Otherwise, the error
> > would accumulate and
> > >the parts wouldn't fit.
> >
> > ??? But why would this happen with building it in metric and
> > would not happen in the ifp building itself??? You hinted above
> > that these parts (blocks, bricks...) are NOT manufactured to
> > better precision than the inch!!! Do you see the inconsistency
> > here, my friend?...
> >
> > If a part does not offer a certain precision whether you're doing
> > things in one scale or the other doesn't matter! You would end
> > up with tolerance difficulties, sir!!!
> >
> > ... Therefore, the "trick" to address that is always in
> > adjusting other things, like the amount of mortar, for instance.
> >
> > Therefore, please don't blame the values in metric for the
> > "mishap" or try to convince us that we would necessarily need to
> > work with "sub-millimeter" precision!
> >
> > >Your blocks would be noticeably out of whack with each other and
> > with other
> > >parts of the building. This is why builders are so unhappy about
> > >soft-metrication. It's a big headache for them.
> > >...
> > Granted, there could be challanges. But I dispute they'd be
> > insurmountable to the point of abandoning the whole effort
> > altogether. As I indicated earlier since it's undeniable that
> > even in metric construction one can still "work" with "ifp"
> > components why wouldn't this be true in this case (i.e. when the
> > system that is rational is metric and one tries to use "rational"
> > ifp components - true, let's put aside the (also) undeniable fact
> > that this is one of the very advantages of using the SI system,
> > and also the wastage aspect which I already acknowledged)???
> >
> > Therefore, I can only consider that this is a very lame excuse.
> > Granted that the comparison is not entirely fair as there are
> > much, much fewer ifp components in metric construction than the
> > other way around. But then again, if this is the case it would
> > mean it would be time to start pushing suppliers to come up with
> > more "metrically rational" components, would it not (or in better
> > precision than they are now)???
> >
> > Marcus
> >
> >
> > Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com
> >
> >
>
>
