Well, it sucked big time. The Metric system isn't hard but the ridiculous conversions just about killed me. I'm not naturally mathematical, my brain works best around words and colors but I am gifted in organizing so algebra later became easy. But why didn't we just do it? Toss the stupid rulers and go for complete change, forget the conversions? Oh well...
Then one day we stopped. WTF? Was it too hard? Did we run out of money? I'm sure there are in depth discussions of why and who was at fault but the Metric system just became one of those things the foreign folk did and we didn't worry about it unless we planned to travel.
Fast forward fifty years and I'm still struggling with the Imperial system, inches and quarter inches and eighths and whatnot. Slowly I've been moving myself over to Metrics. I see the simplicity of millimeters and centimeters and how easy they are to deal with, especially with very small units of measurement.
However, it's still not perfect, if you want to go slightly crazy look up Wire Gauge on Wikipedia and see if that makes any sense to you. Though I've just about got my mainstay wire gauges figured, 22 equals .6mm, 20 equals .8mm and 18 equals 1mm.
Here's my handy B&S Gauge chart...
Not to mention the sanding grits, oh my gawd, save me, this is just one example of a sanding set I use regularly. This is only one of the many.
Now Pi is my friend, who da thunk it? If you want to make a ring that actually fits you've gotta learn to do the math. Inner diameter plus the thickness of the wire or sheet times Pi and then add on a bit more if it's going to be a thick ring, holy cow.
I am now fluent in millimeters, me and my digital calipers, and have gradually moved over from listing small measurements in the ever confusing inches to the more easily understood millimeter.
So, I apologize if you can't quite understand the measurements I'm using. I still list necklaces in inch length. If you want a measurement in inches just let me know.
Peace
