I just read an Instructable which used inches for their measurements and thought again how clumsy/complex it was! My brother-in-law from the USA was here 3 years ago and I taught him how to use metric. He was blown away by how easy it is! He said they had a metric specialist in their production department that did all the measuring when a project had metric specifications! It is actually the easiest way to measure, but I still do talk about things an inch long or needs about 2 feet more, etc. This is what has inspired me to write my first Instructable, plus when I saw the Instructable logo on a rock, the writing was on the wall!

Having moved to Australia (metric) from the USA (imperial) 28 years ago, I can understand both languages. Australia which changed to metric many decades ago is still using imperial for some measurements such as: bow draw weight and arrow length, tyre sizes, child birth weights, etc.

Just think if you could measure using all whole numbers - wouldn't it make the math simpler? Let's do that. Just shrink your inch tape measure down in size so that all the fraction inch measurements disappear and you are just left with whole numbers. We normally just measure to 1/16" of an inch so lets shrink our tape measure down to the size so that the distance between the numbers is about 1/16 of an inch. Wouldn't this make it easier to make measurements and do math with them? Hell Yes! What we have just made is a metric tape measure and you can go out and buy one to see for yourself.

Now the problem with our tape measure is that the numbers get too big when we start looking at measuring room sizes or anything else big. So lets just indicate each 1 increment with a small mark just like a 1/16" mark on the old tape measure and we will put a slightly larger mark on every 5 to help us count the marks (i.e. 5, 15. 25, 35, etc.) . At every 10 marks, we label that with the number to make counting the marks easier just as the whole numbers are marked on the old tape measure (i.e. 10, 20, 30, 40, etc.). This is our final metric tape measure. Now we will talk about each mark as a millimetre so everyone will know what we are talking about. When we get to 1000 millimetre mark, it starts to get clumsy so lets call every 1000mm a meter. This makes things easier in the big measurements.

Lets add two timbers, one is 421mm in length and the other is 779 This equals 1200 which we can call 1200mm or 1.2meters. This is about a yard long and plywood comes in 1.2m x 2.4m which roughly equals a 4' x 8' standard plywood sheet. You get the hang of the sizes after a while but that is why many old tradesmen use inches when talking in general terms and supplies such as 4" x 2" timbers. Many materials/products are in metric form but it is taken directly from the metric measurement of the inch size such as 90 x 45mm. Something might be quoted as 12.4mm in size which makes you think they are very precise, but this is just a 1/2" measurement.

So don't' be put off by metric, it is far easier with the maths and doing the actual measurements with whole numbers!

Go out and buy a metric tape measure and start using it. Don't try to convert inches to metric it is too hard - but you can use a converter calculator online to make it easier. Do all the measurements in metric and you will be happier!