professor Scott Brown here this is a one meter ruler this it's a two meter ruler
and this is a five minute measuring tape all these fools of the metric system yet we still
call this a piece of four by two in this exciting episode I'm going to explain why
now this channel is all about carpentry and then carpentry we measure a lot of stuff now
whether I say that this bench is one meter wide every now and then they'll get a comment below
from someone who doesn't understand the metric system so to get around that I usually pop up
an imperial measurement here I do understand the feelings some of my favorite youtubers in
America when I'm watching finished carpentry TV are our buildings or the essential craftsmen I
have to sit there and convert the measurements especially if they're talking about fractions
of an inch so this is the crown we're gonna be using this is a six and five sixteenths
symmetrical crown six and five six I need I think I get confused when I try to do a
direct conversion for example this one meter roller if I were to convert it would be three
feet three point three seven zero one inches rather than trying to convert it I think it's
easier to break down measurements using their own unit system so like one yard is three feet
and a foot is 12 inches and so on if I'm watching Richard I'm finished carpentry TV and he says he's
installing a six inch baseboard I know my head oh yeah okay so there's 12 inches in a foot I
know how long a foot is about there that's half a foot so the baseboards probably about there
if it is the metric system there you're not familiar with try and look at it the same way
this is one meter there are 1000 millimeters in this meter and there are also 100 centimeters
in this meter that's it that's the whole metric system explain at least as far as carpentry goes
anywhere now we are not completely metric here at least unofficially when I get the invoice for
this piece of timber here it'll say 100 by 50 machine gauge down to 90 by 45 although I call
this a length of 4 by 2 also when I talk about my height I say that I'm 6 feet tall I don't say that
I'm a hundred and eighty five centimeters but I guess the doctor will probably write
down 185 centimeters that's what I mean there was unofficial our word use of imperial these
days and it's inconsistent if I have a sheet of plywood or plaster board a standard sizes 1.2
by 2.4 meters rather than 8 feet by 4 feet part of the world where this mixture of metric and
imperial is common is the United Kingdom judging from my experience the younger the tradesmen the
more likely they were to use metric but then again they still talk about beer as pints of beer and
they measure roads and miles not kilometres but the funny thing is it's because of the UK that in
New Zealand is metric see before the 60s and 70s when New Zealand converted and UK converted guys
used to use rulers like this one here this is a three foot folding ruler I bought this ruler this
morning from a hardware store around the corner they're still real easy to come by I think this
cost me like $8 and this morning I also picked up this measuring tape for three dollars from
the local highways store and as you can see it shows both metric and imperial and that is super
common you can find these everywhere and also when I was a kid we used to take 30 centimeter
rulers to school I like this one right here I guess you could ask why not 35 you know why
30 well that's because 30 is approximately one foot before I mean to school they used to take
foot rules to school you can see on this one here it has both so that's kind of why we use a mixture
of both I think it's a cultural thing I think the real reason we converted though is it's easier
on a lot of industries a lot of manufacturers you know scientists and things like that they
prefer using the decimal system that the metric is based on and that's also true in the u.s. in
fact if you are in America right now and you've got a can of coke nearby or something similar
have a look at it it'll have the contents in both metric and imperial on the side there maybe it'll
just be easier if I carry around this measuring tape from now on and look at both measurements
like this bench for example a lot of people ask me about measurements of this bench well
as I said earlier it's one meter wide 39:39 in a quarter inch at 1,800 millimeters long Sydney
and three-quarter inch 260 millimeters and ten and a quarter inch in other news I'm currently
not working that's why this exciting episode is a little different I hit this last week
here actually I was walking past this bench and the hand saw went right in and a we pretty deep
so the nurse glue that shut later on that night I hit it again blood blood went everywhere but
of course this is a family friendly show and I'm not gonna put any pictures of that here so
everything should be back to normal next week and more exciting episodes as well thanks for
watching guys oh one more thing check out what else I got from the old hardware store today
it's a legitimate Yankee screwdriver how cool is that boys one on one of these and I got a smaller
version as well so when you're taking off old doors and covered in paint you can hammer that
into the flathead screw and crank it out listen to that okay that's enough see you in the next
sunny answer thanks for joining me I'm glad you're made of this [ __ ] keep it real and okay bye now