When dealing with fractions of an inch, measuring devices ALWAYS use base 2 denominators (1/2 inches, 1/4 inches, 1/8 inches, 1/16 inches). They actually have ticks on the tape measure to represent those values. By convention, measurements are as well written down using that same principle.
It’s so ubiquitous, that people fall apart if it’s deviated from.
Also, from a practical perspective, there won’t be an explicit mark on a tape measure for any of those measurements, so they’d need to kinda fudge that if they wanted to take a more precise measurement with a standard tape measure.
In Canada at least, it’s pretty common for a tape measure to have metric and imperial units. Not sure if that’s the same on the US. In this situation, I’d just use the metric. And for any of the highlighted measurements, I don’t think I’d be to stressed out about if I mismeasured by a 16th of an inch anyways.
In the US trades, every measurement is expressed in ft/in, with fractions by 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 as they’re expressed on a standard US tape measure. No one uses 5ths, 10ths, 3rds, etc.
I don’t get it.
When dealing with fractions of an inch, measuring devices ALWAYS use base 2 denominators (1/2 inches, 1/4 inches, 1/8 inches, 1/16 inches). They actually have ticks on the tape measure to represent those values. By convention, measurements are as well written down using that same principle.
It’s so ubiquitous, that people fall apart if it’s deviated from.
Also, from a practical perspective, there won’t be an explicit mark on a tape measure for any of those measurements, so they’d need to kinda fudge that if they wanted to take a more precise measurement with a standard tape measure.
In Canada at least, it’s pretty common for a tape measure to have metric and imperial units. Not sure if that’s the same on the US. In this situation, I’d just use the metric. And for any of the highlighted measurements, I don’t think I’d be to stressed out about if I mismeasured by a 16th of an inch anyways.
How would you then represent 1/3 inches? ~5/16?
I guess you’d use decimal inches and call it 0.3333333
Or you could do 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 … or 1/(2^n) and sum that for n=2 to infinity
I’m in New Zealand, we exclusively use millimeters for work like this, and I’m so glad we do.
What a mess.
The fractions don’t correlate to known measurement increments. It’s nonsense typed up by someone unfamiliar with appliance specifications.
I see. I’m not familiar with the Yeehaw measurement system, so I didn’t pick up on that.
In the US trades, every measurement is expressed in ft/in, with fractions by 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 as they’re expressed on a standard US tape measure. No one uses 5ths, 10ths, 3rds, etc.
To be fair 10ths are a thing in surveying. And occasionally engineering I guess but I’ve never seen it.
I want a ruler in 3rds just to mess with people now though.
There’s a 12ths scale on a carpenters square. Used mostly for roofs I believe.
frankly, using predetermined denominators only seems marginally better to me
it makes me wonder who decided that
32 3/8 inwas more readable than32.375 inUseful for tape measures. 3/8in would be 6 marks in (6/16)
Except 1/100 and 1/1000 because consistency