[Westy]

A good number of US companies...if not most, make their stuff to metric standards. For some reason the housing industry is totally exempt to this, but almost everything else, cars, tech, mechanical shit, is. What's the angle though, are you saying they should be using imperial instead?

The only area I have worked that still uses imperial is in aviation and from what I understand that is not unique to the US. This is in large part because of the longevity of airplanes and all the regulatory requirements. Even though a 5/16" bolt is almost Identical to an 8mm bolt it would require a lot of time and money to do everything required for regulatory approval to switch. Now consider that the typical airliner has over 10,000 different types of fasteners and it makes sense why they stuck to a crappy old system.

 

[Jm_]

The only area I have worked that still uses imperial is in aviation and from what I understand that is not unique to the US. This is in large part because of the longevity of airplanes and all the regulatory requirements. Even though a 5/16" bolt is almost Identical to an 8mm bolt it would require a lot of time and money to do everything required for regulatory approval to switch. Now consider that the typical airliner has over 10,000 different types of fasteners and it makes sense why they stuck to a crappy old system.

Well, are you referring to a 1960 boeing design that should have been re-designed but was just stretched and re-winged to keep costs down?

What about a 787? All the tooling metric or imperial?

But yeah, seems a lot of "sunk cost' into high production aviation stuff that has to keep flying.

 

[Westy]

Well, are you referring to a 1960 boeing design that should have been re-designed but was just stretched and re-winged to keep costs down?

What about a 787? All the tooling metric or imperial?

But yeah, seems a lot of "sunk cost' into high production aviation stuff that has to keep flying.

All imperial. And from what I understand other non US manufacturers are the same way. Only Soviet block manufacturers are full metric and those planes aren't approved to carry passengers in the western world.

And again, a new design doesn't matter. The fasteners used need to be qualified by the FAA and every other regulatory body. It would be prohibitively expensive transition everything over to metric, at least for structural components.

 

[chuffer]

What’s left on bikes that is still Imperial? Steerer tube sizing, wheel diameters, pedal-crank threads and what else? Are BB threads also Imperial or are they something else - i once had frame that had a so-called Italian threaded bb…

At my first job in Germany we had a couple of machines (drop hammer and a huge hyd press) that still had whitworth fasteners. We had a supply room full of spare whitworth fasteners.

 

[jdcamb]

I still have all my Campy tools, yet I never use them. I just know when I get rid of them somebody will need me to fix their Campy setup. I still have Pedros tools even though I have Park and Shimano tools that do the same thing. Never use them also.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

I still have all my Campy tools, yet I never use them. I just know when I get rid of them somebody will need me to fix their Campy setup. I still have Pedros tools even though I have Park and Shimano tools that do the same thing. Never use them also.

I have a few Pedros flat wrenches that work ok, but they were never my favorite tool manufacturer. Campy? De nada.

 

[jonKranked]

i once had frame that had a so-called Italian threaded bb…