Scratchbuilding a HO Hayes Bumper

[Mr Fixit]

Topic B on this thread:
There was supposed to be a "soft" metric conversion followed by a "hard" metric conversion.
The soft conversion was labelling the old quart jars in microlitres; the hard conversion was when the containers were rebuilt to round metric sizes.
When I ask what the speed limit is, my wife converts the sign to mph and the I have to convert back to the kph on my speedometer.
I still can't visualize coach lengths in tens of thousands of mm.

Try using Metres and decimal points thereof.

If a coach car was 90 Feet long in the old money dividing by 3 feet to the metre [approx] gets you 30 metres.

If it was 85 feet long then divide by 3 again gets you 28.33 metres.

An 8 by 4 sheet of plywood is nominally 2.4 x 1.2 metres. In actual millimetres it would measure [depending upon supplier] 2440 by 1220 millimetres. Some boards particularly plywood are 2400 x 1200. There are 304 mm to the foot and 25.4 mm to the inch. Wall studs are 90 by 35mm and door studs 90 by 45mm.

Decimetres dont exist in Australia.
Centimetres are used for measuring humans and clothing and retailing of furniture.
Metres and millimetres are used in building, and the associated trades.

Some students at school have trouble in Design Technology because they have only ever been exposed by the education system to centimetres. I cant cut up their wood using centimetres, well I could but they have to understand that I and the rest of the building trades work in millimetres.

Mark