How do you like your prints?

[Geo.]

hi All
I was doing some inspection to day, and the prints I was given were all in metric 
A large hassle because of the number of conversions + tolerances (30 dimensions)
It’s a great math exercise, but a lot of work
Extra work = extra room for error in my book, of course it also allows for an extra check, but at this point it’s may be a little late,

I will stop whining now,

So I ask: with America heading for the metric system Inch by Inch,
How do you like your Prints?

Geo.

[Ron]

hi All
I was doing some inspection to day, and the prints I was given were all in metric 
A large hassle because of the number of conversions + tolerances (30 dimensions)
It’s a great math exercise, but a lot of work
Extra work = extra room for error in my book, of course it also allows for an extra check, but at this point it’s may be a little late,

I will stop whining now,

So I ask: with America heading for the metric system Inch by Inch,
How do you like your Prints?

Geo.

I have been there.... way back in in the 70s with no calculators and just like you we made errors. All of NASA was metric, most of the aircraft industry was going metric, and the auto industry too.

If it is a CAD blue print there is no excuse for not giving you an  inch version since it's no work at all for them to provide it. But I'll bet you are stuck with what you have..

We just wrote the inch conversion in red ink next to the mm spec.

But here is a neat trick. Buy yourself  an inch/metric height gauge. Many of them are 24"/600mm with a different vernier scale on each side. Better yet and electronic height ga can go from inch to metric a the push of a button.
At least is keeps the math mistakes low.

Plenty of them on ebay

Heres one from my store:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/190710310590?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

[Geo.]

Hi Ron
I think that’s my big complaint, proper prints is not any real work and it makes no sence for each machinist to redo the math

Yup! That’s the trick, I use mitutoyo digitals, and I have cheaper brands for less fussy work
My experience with e bay calipers is You have to Check them over their WHOLE range
one "perfect" machinist "got a deal" that had a compound error and scraped a lot of parts 12" dia parts

There is / was a conversion calculator that was dam handy but I gave up on them because they lasted only a year if you used them or not, and at $40 a pop........

Nice store, nothing I need now but I’ll keep looking in,

Geo.

[ghoulardi]

 Got a metric print once and decided to program it in metric. Didn't work too well cause when you're looking a the "distance to go" what does 150mm look like? Am I gonna crash? I KNOW what 6" looks like so I went back and converted to english.

[Ron]

Got a metric print once and decided to program it in metric. Didn't work too well cause when you're looking a the "distance to go" what does 150mm look like? Am I gonna crash? I KNOW what 6" looks like so I went back and converted to english.

That brings up and interesting concept. If you look at the height gauges that have both metric and inch scales they will often be described as 12"/300mm or 18"/450mm or 24"/600mm.
It would make one think that there is a mathematical connection. All it means is that there is room for both scales on the height gauge.
For example 12"=304.79999mm

SO be careful.