Beta Engines, metric or imperial?

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by tarian

Did not Napoleon not end up defeated at Waterloo by the Duke Wellington as commander, and held at St Helena is the South Atlantic as a prisoner, and his only claim to fame is the phrase Napoleon Syndrome !!

Yup. And perhaps one of the reasons he lost at Waterloo was that not all his horses, wagon drivers, etc. were yet smoothly operating on the right side of the road. Mass confusion!

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by NSboatman

Canada is also dyslexic when it comes to units. Officially all metric; but since so much of our equipment and hardware comes from south of the border, you really cannot function without both SAE and metric tools. Almost all domestic hardware (threads, plumbing, etc) is in SAE/imperial/US formats in the big box stores still. It’s a mess, and maddening...

I run an engineering company here, and we’ve had painful experiences with suppliers taking our design files in one set of units and producing in another... and 25.4 is one hell of a multiplier! We have a few examples of this on our wall of shame that every new employee gets introduced to, as a preventative measure!

Didn't we have an Air Canada Airbus something or other crash land a few years ago because it ran out of fuel due to a faulty imperial-to-metric conversion? And didn't one of the Martian Rovers do the same thing for the same reason?


Here in some BC supermarkets, for example, produce is priced in pounds on the shelf or in the bin, but you're charged by the kilo at check-out. Go figure!


We were well on the way to full conversion under the Pierre Trudeau government but it was brought to a violent halt when they were defeated and the Tories (all things British! - even though the British were converting to metric!) took over.


The Americans at the time said conversion was a good idea and they would do so ten years after us - using our experience as a teaching tool. Surprise! They reneged!

[Scorpius]

Originally Posted by Wotname

+ Napoleon Brandy

Oops. Forgot about the Brandy!

[Martkimwat]

Originally Posted by GILow

This is reassuring, I was worried that the UK conversion might have introduced non-metric bits.

Why would you think that? UK has been metric for a good 20 plus years now. USA is still imperial though.

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

US, Burma, and Liberia actually.

Regardless of what you might read in CIA books, Myanmar's chief trading partner is China, with Nippon and India making up the top three.

So most every imported manufactured object is metric.

[Vasco]

And this

[jmschmidt]

Don't you mean metric or SAE? Imperial, I think is the old Whitworth tools I needed for my 61 MGA Roadster.

[Niall leslie]

Dear Matt,

The Beta is metric and the gearbox will likely be too.
If cruising widely then I suggest that if your tools are mainly metric then you also carry a basic set of good adjustable spanners from very small to very large, a set of imperial spanners ( open one end and ring or closed at the other ) from possibly 1/4" to 1 1/4" plus a selection of any other special sizes and types of nut & bolt turning tools such as sockets etc.
Within reason, you can never have enough tools!
Best regards,
Niall.

[Niall leslie]

Incidentally - a good engine choice in that size range!
Cheers,
Niall.

[GILow]

Niall, thank you very much for your comments. I will do as you suggest with the spanners. This will be bad news for my son, as I was thinking I could gift him my excellent set of metric spanners for his 52 year old Peugeot.

As for the UK being metric... I suppose I should have realised that. I will plead the defence of owning a 1970 mini, which has coloured my thinking somewhat.

I am trying to watch the weight of what I load onboard, and these spanner sets get quite heavy.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by jmschmidt

Don't you mean metric or SAE? Imperial, I think is the old Whitworth tools I needed for my 61 MGA Roadster.

To be honest, I never really got my head around the difference. My understanding is really limited to metric or “not metric”, which I call imperial but I may well be using that term incorrectly.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Martkimwat

Why would you think that? UK has been metric for a good 20 plus years now. USA is still imperial though.

See the mini defence I posted earlier... but 20 years is not all that long. What prompted the change I wonder? Was it EU related?

[Jim Cate]

Matt, I strongly suggest carrying a full set of "non-metric" wrenches (er, spanners) and not relying upon adjustables for dealing with such nuts and bolts. You WILL encounter them in your travels and WILL curse yourself if you don't have decent tools to deal with them.

I know that one has to limit weight on ULDB boats like yours, but tools are not the best place to do so IME.

Jim

PS for the acronym challenged, "ULDB" means ultra large dreadfully bulky

[GILow]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

PS for the acronym challenged, "ULDB" means ultra large dreadfully bulky

Well, I’m not sure 42 feet qualifies as ultra large in this day and age...

I’ll pay dreadfully bulky, though her recent diet has seen her lose close to four tons, so maybe just VB instead?

[requiem]

Originally Posted by GILow

To be honest, I never really got my head around the difference. My understanding is really limited to metric or “not metric”, which I call imperial but I may well be using that term incorrectly.

Fortunately for most tools the difference between US units and imperial units doesn't really matter. If you're working with volumes, such as gallons, then confusing US and imperial can lead to unexpected results.

(At least in the US we are finally getting around to retiring one of our two different definitions for precisely how long a "foot" is.)