3 ms·

But... none of those issues have to do with imperial units. If you have a 30cm wide board, you can't get 3 10cm wide pieces either. And 2"x4" in lumber sizes

• toss1 8y ago
  Good point - it's not so much that the issues of accounting for the kerf go away, they're just easier to deal with in decimal. I usually am using materials like structural foam, carbon fiber, or metals, just used wood as an easy example. And I'm using higher precision than most carpenters, so typically measuring with a micrometer which reads out in 0.001in (or 0.01mm) units. You can't just go from 1x12in to 3x4in pieces, you have to knock off maybe 5/64in for a kerf, which is 0.078125in so to get 3x 4in wide pieces, I'll need a board which is 12+5/32... Lots easier to work with 1.984mm so for my 3x 10cm pieces I'll need a 304 mm wide board. The bottom line is that once you get precise, the fractional regime which is indeed often easier to divide out by 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6... etc. turns out to be no use at all because you can never actually use those nice fractions, and you're in a decimal regime with lots of fractional conversions (some micrometers even have a fractional inch readout mode, but it turns out to be not all that useful.) Once you're in decimal, it's WAAAAY easier to be in metric all the way.