[amsat-bb] Re: AMSAT-NA totally metric?

[Bruce Bostwick]

> Anyone got metric back gears for my WW II South Bend lathe ? Don't  
> suggest
> some made in China junk with a AC motor. Think the US Goverment is  
> going to
> give me a new one to be metric? Dream on!

Most of the folks doing production machine shop stuff have long since  
gone CNC, and I know CNC mills can handle most common engineering  
units including metric.  Lathes, most of what's out there now is  
"made in China" gearhead stuff that is designed primarly to be metric  
and handles English units as sort of an afterthought.

(That being said, I've worked with a South Bend myself and fell in  
love with it from the first cut, and the fact that the old WWII era  
South Bend lathes don't do metric threads is worth putting up with  
for the sheer joy of making stuff on them.  Especially with a good  
solid toolpost.  :D )

> Logic is often only in the eyes of the beholder! Easy is only in  
> the the
> skill and knowledge of the craftsman!

You've made an important point, and that's that what you grew up with  
and what your eyes and hands "know" intuitively is hard to relearn in  
other units.  I was exposed to metric *very* early in my life (was in  
elementary school when metric was all the rage in the schools) and  
picked it up sort of intuitively, but had to relearn into English  
units for the one-off custom machine shop work I was doing for a job  
several years ago.  There are some aspects of the machinist's art in  
this country that will be very difficult to convert into metric for  
some time to come.  (I can tell part fits and clearances to about . 
001" by feel.  I have no idea what the equivalent in metric is  
without getting out a calculator.  That's only one of many  
examples.)  It'll probably happen, but it's going to take quite some  
time, at least here .. and something will be lost in the translation ..

"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a  
little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider  
price only are this man's lawful prey." -- John Ruskin