Hi Guys
I live in South Africa and since we use the metric system I have an imperial question. I’ve got some numbers for a board but I need some help understanding them. An example would be 1.72 inches. I have a ruler with inches on but it breaks up the inches into quarters, eigths and so on. What the hell is the .72? What is the standard way fro breaking up inches? Any help would be apprecitaed.
one inch = 25.4mm, one inch = 2.54cm, divided by 16 = 1.5875mm per 1/16 th inch. (the smallest PRACTICAL division of an inch for use in surfboards) .72 inch x 25.4mm = 18.288mm, or 1.8288cm. Helpful?
Little question:
do you guys really count with the imperial system?
Or do you count in inches and divide it than by 12 to get the feet?
I alway convert it to metric. (here, in belgium, we use the metric)
me ?
i like telling people i am 5’ 9 3/4" and weigh 70kgs ,
and then watch the expression on their faces .
that REALLY burns their bagels / singes their noodles / curdles their custard , etc
i was brought up with the imperial , switched to metric some year during my schooling , and
have been a confused person ever since .
at least , that’s MY story , and i’m STICKING to it !
builders seem to switch between mms and ’ and " with ease .
And most people here in oz that i have spoken to anyway still seem to talk abot 6’ boards , even my 22 y.o. mates , whoo were brought up on metric , Go figure , eh ?
Shaperom.net makes my head spin , when people there start posting mm measurements for length , width , and thickness , and rockers , of boards…
ben
Example: 7 foot 3 inch board is 7x12+3= 87inches long. In every situation requireing a measurement, I operate in the Imperial system. Metric system in the U.S. is confined to the scientific communities. So, the answer to your question is, YES, we really do count with the imperial system. FEET X 12 to obtain INCHES For surfboard purposes, length is expressed in feet and inches, width is expressed in inches only.
and
have been a confused person ever since .
Now, that explains a lot…
a bit off topic but my dad was a bricklayer, him and his mate tried to convert to metric when it came in by using those measuring tapes with feet and inches on the top half and metric on the bottom half, they used to relay measurements to others something like this:
“IT’S 4FOOT, 9INCHES AND…2MM!” OR
“IT’S 3,200MM…AND 1/8TH!”
all with a dead straight face, and they were serious too!!!
Hans,
A further example of a personal nature: I have a much greater desire to be 6 feet tall, as opposed to being 1.829 meters tall.
Thanks Bill
I’ll give your formular a go!
Cheers
Antman
Hans,
A further example of a personal nature: I have a much greater desire to be 6 feet tall, as opposed to being 1.829 meters tall.
We don’t count the mm, we say, I’m 1 meter 91. Like you say I’m 6 feet 3 (inch). 
Yeah I understand that metric is for scientists.
I study engineer and with metric that’s so easy. I can imagine that it would be hell to use the imperial system for scientific calculations, because than you have to use constants everywhere.
But I like to put the imperial measurements on my surfboards! And all the surfboards (except sailboards) are here with imperial. So we are used to that.
But it’s little confusing, when we see a board with 6’9" we always have the feeling, “oh that’s almost seven”. But I like that
.72 is just a touch less than 3/4 (.75).
.0625 = 1/16, .125 = 1/8, .25 = 1/4, .375 = 3/8, .5 = 1/2, .625 = 5/8, and so on.
Hi Ben,
I remember walking into a BBC hardware store and asking for a 3 foot metric ruler … no worries !
A
‘Imperial Ruler’ has a certain ring to it