What size ratchets do they use in Europe?

[SuperBuickGuy]

Well maybe we should just climb back up in the trees

I'm thinking your fingers just wrote a check that your body can't cash.

Oh Dan, fire up the video camera (or get some charcoal sticks to give us a solid drawing of the result).

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

I'm thinking your fingers just wrote a check that your body can't cash.

Oh Dan, fire up the video camera (or get some charcoal sticks to give us a solid drawing of the result).

Well, I am afraid of heights, so I'm not going to climb up a tree. Let the lions, tigers and bears get me. Just make it quick!

Also, I haven't gotten past crayons yet, and you want me to try to use charcoal sticks? And don't get me going on hammers, l still use rocks from the stream out back...

That might be why I can't get my watch back together

[oletrux4evr]

I really don't mind using SAE or metric tools on a project. But who was the genius that decided to mix fasteners on the same vehicle? Must have been moonlighting for Snap-On.

[nickleone]

Google search:

• The cubit, generally taken as equal to 18 inches (457 mm), was based on the length of the arm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger and was considered the equivalent of 6 palms or 2 spans. In some ancient cultures it was as long as 21 inches (531 mm).

www.britannica.com/science/cubit

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Chains, rods, and other surveyors units of measure, and you needed to carry a thermometer to be able to compensate for thermal distortion. Nowadays just fire up the Total Station and the tablet.
And speaking of temperature, 4 different systems. Celsius, Fahrenheit, Rankin, Kelvin, Delisle, Newton, Reaumur, and Romer ((an o with a slash thru it, go figure). Why?

[SuperBuickGuy]

Well, I am afraid of heights, so I'm not going to climb up a tree. Let the lions, tigers and bears get me. Just make it quick!

Also, I haven't gotten past crayons yet, and you want me to try to use charcoal sticks? And don't get me going on hammers, l still use rocks from the stream out back...

That might be why I can't get my watch back together

I thought that when you went to school charcoal was your ink and cave walls were your paper?

[DanStokes]

I thought that when you went to school charcoal was your ink and cave walls were your paper?

He ain't that old. Me, on the other hand.......

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

I thought that when you went to school charcoal was your ink and cave walls were your paper?

Hides were the paper. But first you had a feast! Save the blood to draw with...

I do remember mimeograph machines, and the smell of the process. And real blueprints. 30 percent ammonia developing solution. And the final project for 3rd year mechanical drawing class was done with India Ink on linen. When you got it back after grading the teacher told us to wash it in the washing machine. It washed whatever made it feel like paper out, and you had a drawing on a huge piece of cloth. I kept it for years, but eventually it got misplaced. It'd be neat to have it still.

And you'd think that after working on building paper machinery for 10 years back then I'd know how that stuff was made! Nah...

[SuperBuickGuy]

Hides were the paper. But first you had a feast! Save the blood to draw with...

I do remember mimeograph machines, and the smell of the process. And real blueprints. 30 percent ammonia developing solution. And the final project for 3rd year mechanical drawing class was done with India Ink on linen. When you got it back after grading the teacher told us to wash it in the washing machine. It washed whatever made it feel like paper out, and you had a drawing on a huge piece of cloth. I kept it for years, but eventually it got misplaced. It'd be neat to have it still.

And you'd think that after working on building paper machinery for 10 years back then I'd know how that stuff was made! Nah...

I'm the generation where the change happened - the college I attended didn't want to spend the money for Solidworks because they didn't think CAD would be that big of a deal. So we learned drafting and 10 key, the next year they changed the requirements to graduate, dropped those requirements and added computer stuff. I feel like a Rosetta stone because I know how to dial a rotary phone AND use CAD.

[DanStokes]

Whereas I know how to use a chisel and stone tablet AND an abacus!

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

I'm the generation where the change happened - the college I attended didn't want to spend the money for Solidworks because they didn't think CAD would be that big of a deal. So we learned drafting and 10 key, the next year they changed the requirements to graduate, dropped those requirements and added computer stuff. I feel like a Rosetta stone because I know how to dial a rotary phone AND use CAD.

Started College when I was 27. ZooMass had CAD AND FEA! The computer system had 3 mainframes, a Wang, Digital, and I don't remember the brand of the 3rd one. Interestingly we could use terminals at the school, or for those so inclined and fortunate enough to have an early home computer with modem, we could dial up the system and work from home.

Now another interesting thing about the system was that cad and fea were on the newest computer. And to get to it there was a procedure that required starting with the oldest, moving thru the 2nd, before finally getting to the program on the newest. Further, it required a very specific method of closing out and retreating from the 3rd to the 2nd,, into the 1st before you hung up the modem.

I had a Commodore 64, with the modem. I did 90-96% of course work from home at midnight or later, as that was when the system was least busy. The artsy fartsy students got to use it for??? And only $10 per semester, while we had a $200 per semester fee, so you can see the reason why I worked at home using the Commode 64.

Well, until the last assignment. I got to school one morning and had a note in my mailbox to see the computer people asap! It seems that I didn't back out of the system the night before correctly, and crashedall 3 computers! They were NOT happy with me, to say the least. And I had to finish the final assignment at school on a terminal.

Yeah, me and computers haven't gotten along ever since...

[steve308]

Some of these answers make my head hurt. I submit they started with 10mm but lost it.

[Teddyzee]

This was a great question!

I started as a minitrucker with Ford Rangers. Metric and imperial on the same fastener location on opposite sides... leaf spring bolts, for example...

[DanStokes]

This was a great question!

I started as a minitrucker with Ford Rangers. Metric and imperial on the same fastener location on opposite sides... leaf spring bolts, for example...

My Mustang has a smattering of both systems.

[CTX-SLPR]

My Buick Turbo6 and my L29 Vortec 454 both are a mixture of both as the base engine designs are all SAE while anything designed post sometime in the early 1980's are metric which means the fasteners holding the intake to the heads are SAE but the fasteners holding stuff to the intake itself are Metric and so on...