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Of scale oddities and scale snobbery


SprueMan

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On 05/08/2022 at 15:10, Graham Boak said:

 

 

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I grew up and am still happy with Imperial measures, but having worked with both in the aircraft industry I have no doubt of the superiority of metric.  I'm glad that my children grew up with sensible metrics rather than firkins, furlongs and fortnights.  I do feel that the major fault of the half-hearted British changeover was the retention of the pint and gallon.

 

Furlongs are still used in racing too. 😉

 

There is a long tradition of imperial measurements in this country and I don't really understand why we went metric all those years ago TBH.

The USA is a huge country that has kept imperial and it doesn't seem to have affected them at all. 

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45 minutes ago, Neil.C said:

 

Furlongs are still used in racing too. 😉

 

There is a long tradition of imperial measurements in this country and I don't really understand why we went metric all those years ago TBH.

The USA is a huge country that has kept imperial and it doesn't seem to have affected them at all. 

Because most of our major trading partners use the metric system. Who else uses the UK Imperial system?

The US does not use the Imperial system, although the distance measurements are the same, volume and weights are different. Pints and Gallons are different as are Stones and Tons. US recipes are weird with the cup measurement. 

I cannot see what the fuss is all about If you are buying four apples, they are fou apples if they weigh a pound or 454 grams. I am 68 and happily use both systems. 

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There were long traditions of other things in this country that are no longer continued, and perhaps some others which we have retained but would be better off without.  The main argument in favour of the SI (metric) system is simplicity, making education and widespread use easier and hence quicker, and it is widely used and accepted internationally.  This is not just trade but science, engineering, sport, to name the ones that immediately come to my mind.  As for the US, remember that they lost a spacecraft not so many years ago because one subcontractor used their system whereas it had been designed to SI.  Inconsistency costs.  Inefficiency costs.  Lack of standardisation costs.  These things lead to confusion   Being the odd one out rarely pays in the long run.

 

Those who grew up in the older system - any older system - will of course be perfectly comfortable with it and not always appreciate the value of change.  However, in a few years our children and their children will be equally happy with SI, and look back with amazement at the oddball and esoteric Imperial units.

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3 hours ago, Neil.C said:

The USA is a huge country that has kept imperial and it doesn't seem to have affected them at all.

Try saying that to the people who put the Mars Climate Orbiter together.  Well, to half of them.

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I can work with/and use both the Imperial system and the Metric system,but the one thing I cannot my head around is Newton Metres,when torque loading,inch pounds and foot pounds i can understand but am totally lost with Newton/Metres , must be an age thing  [68]

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I have to say - this is a great thought provoking thread :clap2:with lots of inspired contributions.

 

On my return to modelling I started on 1/48 aircraft - followed by a couple of classic Airfix 1/24 builds.  My interests then changed to military vehicles & 1/72 / 1/76 / HO-OO all played a part in the fun.

 

Finally - after beginning to have problems with my eyesight - I switched to 1/35 AFVs.  Sadly it soon dawned on me that I couldn't even see them.

 

I'm happy to say I can still spectate & applaud all the scales we see here on the forum.

 

Steve 

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8 minutes ago, RAF4EVER said:

I can work with/and use both the Imperial system and the Metric system,but the one thing I cannot my head around is Newton Metres,when torque loading,inch pounds and foot pounds i can understand but am totally lost with Newton/Metres , must be an age thing  [68]

Totally the opposite here, i understand Nm but not these silly inch pounds and foot pounds. Feet are a body part and pounds are money as far as I'm concerned... well, feet are alright for flying because there's no unit conversions to worry about to inches, yards and miles (I'd still prefer meters though! And knots- nautical miles per hour- are the worst!).

I'm 19 so I guess that it is probably an age thing. 

Edited by Adam Poultney
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You think all that's bad; try deciphering miles and leagues in medieval history records and chronicles!

England, Scotland, Hibernia, France, Flanders, German States, Bohemia, everyone had their own measure for a mile and for a league.

So when a chronicler writes X's army marched 15 leagues in three days, is that 15 x 1.25 miles. or x 3 miles or x 5 miles or even x 13 miles, and whose miles? English? Scots which is longer, or Hibernian which is longer again, or French which was shorter that the English mile?

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I was reading today about models of sailing ships used as 3D blueprints in the days when many shipwrights couldn't read written plans. This was the sixteenth or seventeenth century onward and, while there were many exceptions, the most common scale seemed to have been a quarter inch to the foot. That's right, 1/48 scale models go back about 500 years!

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2 hours ago, Adam Poultney said:

Couldn't agree more. Metric all the way.

 

Absolutely; the word "metric" tells you that it's all based around units which lock together, relate to each other in the same way, follow the same rules and behave in the same way. Farting about with gills, roods and stones is archaic, complicated and unnecessary - and that's before we get to dividing them up by weird fractions that have no real-world representation and can't be independently measured.

 

My grandfather was an engineer who worked in Imperial all his life.  My Dad was born in 1950 and still insists on using Imperial tools despite anything that was made in the UK, Europe, Japan, China or Australasia since 1970 - because his own dad hated the metric system!  He used to live on a canal boat and if it needed maintenance I had to take tools to it and fix it myself, despite the bloody thing being half-full of old Whitworth spanners.  I despair as to why the hell anybody would cling to the Imperial system.

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I think that maybe, just maybe, some people are getting a little bit overwrought with regards their dislike of the good old Imperial measurements system. The most esoteric bits are no longer in common use, and the rest isn't that hard to comprehend. I was raised in a metric country, but have no real trouble with the common Imperial measures. It's simply a matter of familiarity and use. It's really not that big a deal. For the record, I'm 55. 

 

(Even Whitworth isn't that hard to understand, it just takes a bit of effort and a desire to learn. And perhaps, an interest in manky old Brit machinery helps too.) 

 

Of more concern to me (and getting somewhat back on topic) - when are we going to finally get a 1/24 injection kit of the RA23 Toyota Celica coupe so that I can build a model of my first and most favourite car? Aoshima, are you listening? 

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It is sometimes said that some Revell models were made in "odd" scales in order that they would fit in the cardboard box! For example Revell's "Voyager" starship from the Star Trek series conforms to the scale of 1/670. Hardly a standard scale. Go figure - figuratively speaking.

Another scale problem for kit manufacturers arises if they try to design an accurate model of Dr Who's TARDIS: that's much bigger on the inside than it looks on the outside ...

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5 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

And this is why there was never a model of the Mk3 Cortina. Imperial body and metric engine!

Oh, and I use both metric and imperial with no problems. 

And the Austin Metro, but with a metric body and Imperial engine (with a couple of Whitworth threads thrown in for good measure).

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8 hours ago, Jo NZ said:

And the Austin Metro, but with a metric body and Imperial engine (with a couple of Whitworth threads thrown in for good measure).

Wasn't the original Metro engine so old the measurements were in cubits? Mrs T had a couple and my memory of them was the rust. 

Back on topic, I have always stuck with 1/72nd for consistency and it is a scale I somehow feel comfortable with. Having rubbish eyesight all my life has helped (very short sighted) 

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On 8/6/2022 at 8:03 PM, Adam Poultney said:

Couldn't agree more. Metric all the way.

While I'm old enough to use the imperial system and still  do. I use pounds and stones and inches and centimetres. I'm 5 foot 8 and, ahem a certain weight in stones. 

 

However  metric all the way. Do you  know only the UK and USA still use MPH? The only major countries who  do. Even the US military use kilometres.

Of course aviation still uses knots and feet of altitude. 

Remember old money? Before decimialisation in Britain and Ireland a pound had 240 pence, 20 shillings with 12 pence in a shilling. I remember explaining that to my younger brother who was born just before decimialisation. He was puzzled, he said he got the 20 shillings in a pound but 12 pence in a shilling?😄 

 

Only then  did I realise how daft it was.

 

I  still like 1/72 and 1/48 though. 

Edited by noelh
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1 hour ago, bentwaters81tfw said:

Can you buy fishing line with a breaking strain in grams?

 

No, but (certainly in sea fishing) a lot of anglers use line diameter rather than breaking strain as a guide to "strength"; diameter is given in metric.

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