"The Enfield inch" when an inch is not an inch!

[Woodsy]

As a gunsmith I can work happily in metric, Imperial, or a combination of both, but I tend to do all my design drawings in metric. As for the Enfield Inch; it is not worth worrying about as the difference is way smaller than any normal manufacturing tolerance. Curiously, the US, which is the last bastion of Imperial measurements, has only one official system of weights and measures, which is the Metric system and was adopted by Congress in the 1860's (probably the reason they don't use it much!). I have a 1991 GMC pickup which is made with a combination of metric and Imperial measurements!

[Seaspriter]

I shared this thread with my buddy, Aron, who collects military guns from all over. He wrote me back:

"I expect anything older and English to be different. Russians are similar and if you own older pre 1930 Russian guns, they are calibrated in arshins or .78 yards. You will see reference to 3 line rifles sometimes and a line ended up .1 inch so that worked out perfect...a 3 line rifle is 30 cal."

"When I collected and rode old motorcycles and had a 1963 Triumph. I had to buy a set of Whitworth sockets and tools. Plus, my Harleys were all "American normal" with the right hand clutch and left hand brake and the feet were left foot shift and right brake. I would get on my Triumph and all was reversed. Made for some scary drives and one 2mph accident that messed up my leg."

So much for "standards" in the past. No wonder ISO is so prevalent today. In my profession (strategic alliances), recently the Brits were developing standards for collaboration across organizational boundaries. Fortunately and wisely, they asked us on the other side of the pond to contribute our thoughts, knowing we had made a lot of progress on this complex human and organizational issues. The result was not a compromise, but a higher level of thinking and more practical approaches that spanned many cultures. That's the best way to innovate -- synergize differences in thinking. Many of the technical innovations from WWII came from the cross-pollination of Commonwealth and American thinking. It helped us win the war.

[Peter Laidler]

Can you imagine what it was like as a 60's apprentice where every bit of equipment we had was a different thread and we had to learn them all. It was chaotic. Some of the early Centurions were BSF and BSW until the threads changed to Unified.......... but only where new equipment replaced the old so there was a mix of threads. Unified turrets on a BS boat (the bottom section of the tank from turret downwards) Number and letter drills to suit the tapping diameters of these various threads and................. The best was instruments where generally it was all BA., Then at uni when suddenly it was all in metric........ Like Woodsy says, the Enfield inch was almost academic.

If you have a Norton, it's STILL a mix of everything!

[Bruce_in_Oz]

Vauxhalls! God help me: I had TWO of the things.

The first was a 1950 "Wyvern" with REAL leather upholstery, front doors that opened the wrong way, windows that simply pushed up and down, swing-out "wing" indicators in the door pillar, 525 x 16 tyres (NOT good in the wet) and a raging 12 horsepower up front. I got rid of it after "bits" (exhaust valves, gear linkages, etc. started "breaking" with monotonous regularity. Dropping the head of an exhaust valve whilst the pistons are in action is an interesting experience, to say the least. Fortunately, my late father, being a good mechanic, knew where there was a spare engine. Into his shed; delete dead engine, insert "working" one.

The Wyvern was off-loaded on a younger brother of an old school-mate and I then "graduated" to a Vauxhall "Viva" of "mid-60's" vintage, a "hand-me-down" from my older sister..

Oddly enough, IT, in turn, died as a result of an exhaust valve failure as well; only at considerably higher speed and in the middle of nowhere on the New England Tableland in New South Wales...in the middle of Winter....just as it was getting dark. That was spectacular; the displaced valve head lodged sideways into the top of the piston. This, of course, was whizzing up and down at high frequency. Piston kicks sideways in the cylinder, sleeve cracks, contents of cooling system dumped into the oil sump, great white cloud billowing out the back of rapidly and noisily de-cellerating vehicle. Exit one motor.

After a few months of riding my "dirt bike" (mud-digger" tyres are "interesting" on wet bitumen, and especially on painted road markings after any sort of rain), and public transport to get to work, I "graduated" to an XA Falcon utility, which led to another series of "interesting" motoring tales. And then there was the "re-purposed" Ford F-100 ambulance.........

[Peter Laidler]

Hey, you're giving your age away now Bruce! My dad swore by Vauxhall cars after being brought up on driving Bedford trucks in North Africa and up into Italy during the war. I never had one though.........

When we were young, he used to drive his 1961 Vauxhall Victor plus mum and two kids to Spain every year for our holidays (with our friends in a Hillman Minx and small trailer shared between both cars). My dad also did a complete head de-coke on the camping site!

[Bruce_in_Oz]

That's a long way to go for an engine service; I'll bet your Mum was thrilled.

All of this reminiscing!

Could rapidly descend to something Pythonesque: "The Three Yorkshiremen" (living in shoebox in middle of road) spring to mind.

"Vauxhall Wyvern? Looxury! We had Vanguard Standard Eight with NO brakes and dodgy clootch!."

[muffett.2008]

Funny that, my first car was a Standard Eight.