Some olde Imperial measurements. . .

[Phil Perry]

PM Boris says we're going back to Imperial units of measurement, so I found this handy chart which tourists from metricationalised countries might find useful. . . ( Lengths only, sorry )

 

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[facthunter]

What could possibly go wrong? Nev

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Jules Verne. . '2000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. . . .'

 

He was referring to Nautical Miles. .. Who Knew ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

 

 

[old man emu]

League originally meant the distance a person could walk in an hour.

 

1 English land league = 2.9998 miles = 4,828 metres

 

1 league = 3 nautical miles

 

1 nautical mile = 1,852 metres

 

1 mile = 1,609.344 metres (International)

 

1 mile = 1760 yards

 

1 London mile = 1524 metres

 

1 (statute) mile (Great Britain) = 1,609.3426 metres

 

1 (statute) mile (USA) = 1,609.3472 metres

 

Jules Verne. . '2000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. . . .'

That must be the abridged version. In Verne's original story Capt. Nemo sailed 20,000 leagues.

 

We still haven't got the metric equivalents of the following: tad,smick, poofteenth, gnat's nut, bee's dick, whisker.

 

 

[willedoo]

PM Boris says we're going back to Imperial units of measurement

Phil, wouldn't it just be easier if Boris went back to school if he's having that much trouble understanding metrics?

 

 

[spacesailor]

TAKE note !

 

No person can use Metrics successfully

 

If said person is on a dessert island Without a Measure.

 

Who has an atomic particle, to check the length ,weight or any other contrived equation.

 

All the Humorous Imperial sizes are the result of Practical usefulness, derived at after centuries of refinement.

 

The Greeks Romans Germans,& Japanese all had their own Metric systems..

 

Now all cowtie-down to "The International System of Units (SI, abbreviated from the French Système international (d'unités)) is the modern form of the metric system, and is the most widely used system of measurement. ... The system also specifies names for 22 derived units, such as lumen and watt, for other common physical quantities.

 

22 derived units, DERIVED ?

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Derived means one unit is defined by another standard unit. Start with something simple, easy to measure and everyone can be talking the same language:

 

The metre was defined as one ten millionth the distance thru France from the North Pole to the Equator.

 

A cube with side dimension of one tenth of a metre is a litre.

 

That litre cube of water weighs a kilogram.

 

So a cubic metre is 1000 litres or one tonne.

 

One thousandth of a litre (one millilitre) weighs one gram.

 

The energy required to heat that one gram of water one degree Celsius is one calorie...

 

 

[spacesailor]

"Start with something simple, easy to measure and everyone can be talking the same language: "

 

Like counting twelve segments on your fingers. (using the thumb).

 

Who the sheet can count .

 

one ten millionth , of anything,

 

on a desert island !.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Litespeed]

Spacey,

 

The rest of us have 10 fingers including the thumb.

 

No wonder you have trouble counting with 12 fingers.

 

Next Boris will say they are moving England to the tropics as the EU is wrecking the British weather.

 

 

[octave]

[

 

"Start with something simple, easy to measure and everyone can be talking the same language: "Like counting twelve segments on your fingers. (using the thumb).

 

Who the sheet can count .

 

one ten millionth , of anything,

 

on a desert island !.

 

spacesailor

Like it or not metric is the language of science.

 

Who the sheet can count .one ten millionth , of anything,

You or I may not have a need in our everyday life to deal in one ten-millionth but a physicist might or a mathematician.

 

 

[willedoo]

spacey, if I'm ever stuck on a desert island, I doubt if I'd be worried about taking accurate measurements. I'd be more interested in the food and water part of it and working on the suntan.

 

 

[Marty_d]

"Start with something simple, easy to measure and everyone can be talking the same language: "Like counting twelve segments on your fingers. (using the thumb).

 

Who the sheet can count .

 

one ten millionth , of anything,

 

on a desert island !.

 

spacesailor

WTF???

 

I really hope you're not trying to say that imperial is easier than metric. Next you'll be saying that shillings, ha'pennies, guineas and pounds are easier than dollars and sense.

 

Give me the language of tens over all that other shite any day.

 

 

[red750]

I'd be more interested in the food and water part of it

I think he had that part of it taken care of, Willie. He did say he was on a dessert island. I don't know about entree and main course, though!

 

Who says spelling doesn't matter?

 

 

[spacesailor]

"If said person is on a dessert island Without a Measure. "

 

I did too, so much for relying on the spell checker to make me look good. LoL

 

Penny's was Not English "Old English penig, penning of Germanic origin; related to Dutch penning, German Pfennig, perhaps also to pawn2 and (with reference to shape) pan1. "

 

Pound.:"The British pound has its origins in continental Europe under the Roman era. Its name derives from the Latin word "poundus" meaning "weight". The £ symbol comes from an ornate L in Libra. The pound was a unit of currency as early as 775AD in .

 

GUINEA.: " The first guinea was produced on 6 February 1663; a proclamation of 27 March 1663 made the coins legal currency. ... "Guinea" was not an official name for the coin, but much of the gold used to produce the early coins came from Guinea in Africa.

 

It's English."

 

BUT the STANDARD ENGLISH is now french.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[willedoo]

I think he had that part of it taken care of, Willie. He did say he was on a dessert island. I don't know about entree and main course, though!

Who says spelling doesn't matter?

I missed that spelling. Guess I'd be no good there as I'm not allowed to eat dessert. Have been on the rabbit food for seven months now.

 

 

[willedoo]

WTF???I really hope you're not trying to say that imperial is easier than metric. Next you'll be saying that shillings, ha'pennies, guineas and pounds are easier than dollars and sense.

 

Give me the language of tens over all that other shite any day.

Marty, I'm like a lot of people my age - mostly metric with a small bit of imperial left over (psi for example). First experience was early eighties in the building game. Metrics was a godsend to that industry. If you ask a brickie if he'd rather use imperial measurements you would have to duck for cover. I remember some time back being quite shocked at what they were teaching kids at school. Centimetres. Just not used in the real world. All the industries I've worked in use kilometres, metres or millimeters. Nobody uses centimetres.

 

Those poor kids starting in engineering or building related jobs didn't have a clue what 32mm was. To them it was 3.2 centimetres. If you asked them to cut a piece 900 long, they'd look at you with a blank expression and ask what's that in centimetres.

 

I always thought if you are going to break every day use of metrics down to metres, centimetres and millimetres, then you might as well go back to imperial measurements and use yards, feet, inches, half inches, quarter inches, eigth inches, sixteenth inches, thirty second inches.

 

Here's an example - imagine you are a brickie standing there with trowel in hand. See how quickly you can divide nine and 3/8th. inches into eight feet. Now try 240 mills into 2400 (2.4m). 10 metric bricks + perp joint lengthwise as quick as a flash. Now try working out the gauge of the brickwork (working in mm). From the footing to the eave is 2450. The bricks average 75 mm in height. Get your calculator and do 2450 divided by 85 (standard gauge for that sized brick). You get 18 courses of brick plus around 80mm left over. So quickly tap out 2450 divided by 87. That gives 28 neat courses with a smidgen left over at 87 gauge (12mm bed joint which is visually ok). Mark out 87mm segments on the profiles and you're in business.

 

Now do the same calculation dividing 8'2" by 3 & 3/8th. inches. No good, so try 8'2" divided by 3 and 3/32nd. of an inch. Crikey, I'm getting a headache.

 

With metrics, even if the calculator batteries are flat, you can be like the constipated mathematician and work it out with a pencil. And fairly quickly too. Doing it with imperial is a nightmare.

 

Surely Boris is just having a joke.

 

 

[spacesailor]

233 X 112 mm X 77 mm high

 

2400\77= 31.168811688312 ?.

 

Thats the size of bricks here, as Iv'e Just Jumped out to check.

 

BUT

 

Not being a Bricky, It has No meaning whatever.

 

AND

 

No three bricks measure the same 233 mm. one is 297 mm long.

 

and I didn't convert from French to Imperial. OR know what an Imperial brick should measure.

 

That must be the reason this house is set Low, Three bricks off the ground, means Fatty can't get under his house. LoL

 

spacesailor

 

 

[willedoo]

spacey, the bricks vary a lot in size, probably due to the nature of manufacturing. Some makers have more uniform sizes that others. The brickies try to get the wall to look good. The bed joint is the bed of mortar they're laid on and the perp joint (perpendicular joint) is the end joint between bricks. The standard size for the joints in this country is 10mm thick (3/8" previously). They usually get a rough average size of the bricks being laid so they know how thick to make the joints for a fairly uniform looking wall. Depending on the bricks, they might make the joints thicker or thinner that the standard 10mm, depending on which option looks best in the wall. I'd guess 10 mm is used because it looks right and gives optimal strength. A very narrow joint and one that's too large are both weaker.

 

That's where metrics are good for calculating that. If they stuff it up, they can end up with a half height brick course at the top of the wall under the eaves. It looks much better with full courses all the way. The gauge is the height of the brick plus the bed joint. It doesn't take much to what they call pick up or squeeze down a bed joint to suit. An extra 2mm of bed joint over 20 courses of bricks gives 40mm extra height. It's not an exact science and they often have to make compromises.

 

Personally, I think Australia has some of the world's most boring brickwork; too neat and uniform. I much prefer the older type British and European style of laying bricks. It has real character which we lack. We have suburbs and suburbs full of boring looking houses that all look the same. Part of the blame for that is developer covenants on new housing estates where the new owner is bound to build to a certain boring style so everyone looks the same.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

And you can measure intelligence with bricks...

 

...A brick short of a load

 

...Thick as a brick

 

 

[willedoo]

Inspired a song as well. I think it was Jethro Tull.

 

 

[willedoo]

233 X 112 mm X 77 mm high2400\77= 31.168811688312 ?.

 

Thats the size of bricks here, as Iv'e Just Jumped out to check.

 

BUT

 

Not being a Bricky, It has No meaning whatever.

 

AND

 

No three bricks measure the same 233 mm. one is 297 mm long.

 

and I didn't convert from French to Imperial. OR know what an Imperial brick should measure.

 

That must be the reason this house is set Low, Three bricks off the ground, means Fatty can't get under his house. LoL

 

spacesailor

space, a lot of imperial terminology lives on. A double brick thickness wall such as is common in the UK and Europe is still referred to a 9" brick wall in this country. You don't hear anyone call it a 225mm wall even though the trade works in metrics in all other ways.

 

 

[Yenn]

I think you will find that the reason for the boring brickwork in Australia, is that there is very little double skin brickwork here. Most brickwork is a single skin 4.5" thick in the old scale. that means you cannot put anything in the wall except stretcher course. You could of course stsck all the bricks one above the other, but it is much stronger to lay them with a joint above the middle of the brick below. In countries where they lay thick walls you can put header courses in so that the end of the brick is visible. That can be done in several patterns, hence it is not so boring.

 

I did get involved with an architect designed building and the brickie asked me why the 100mm concrete block, internal skin of the wall was of odd dimensions. Thinking there must be some good reason for the architect to have stipulated the dimensions, I guessed that the blockwork was modified to match the brick external skin. I later found out that the external brickwork was also non standard, Both the blockwork and the bricks had to be cut to fit the spacing required. Obviously architects don't understand metric or imperial.

 

 

[willedoo]

Very true, Yenn. Years ago, I worked on a set of architect designed units with a very long back wall. The brickies had to put a cut Besser block in every course because the architect plucked a length out of his head which didn't work blockwork.

 

The boringness I mentioned was not in reference to our using stretcher bond in cavity and veneer walls as opposed to English, Flemish and other 9" wall bonds. More a reference to perfectly laid bricks with raked joints, and the colour and texture of a lot of suburban brick is a bit ordinary. I guess one factor here in Qld. is that brick houses are a relatively new thing, so we've got a lot of newer styles whereas places like Melbourne have had brick houses for a long time.

 

Up my way, there's quite a few houses built with an old heritage red brick style, with flush joints either struck off or roll jointed with an iron bar and using white or off white cement. It looks good if done well. I think that jointing style is used in the northern hemisphere a lot as our recessed, raked style of joint can ice up in winter and crack brickwork with expansion.

 

I've always thought if you wanted a brick veneer house with character, you could do an imitation Flemish bond by using half bricks instead of header bricks. Flemish bond is probably the nicest looking bond and it's use of occasional stretcher bricks would make it stronger than trying to do the same thing with English bond. I couldn't see how it would worry building inspectors as it would be tied in the same and a veneer wall isn't load bearing. It would be a lot of work for the brickie though. And moisture retention inside the cavity could be an issue.

 

 

[red750]

Pink Floyd - Another brick in the wall.

 

 

[spacesailor]

I knew a man, Labeled "master builder" brick-layer. Who never had any qualification's .

 

BUT

 

Was coerced into teaching his trade to the apprentices at TAFE.

 

Old English "curved arches" with the centre brick chopped with his trowel.

 

Now sports two knee, two hip & one shoulder replacements. tough life for the Old brickies.

 

spacesailor