<VV> Paint Thicknesses

[Alan and Clare Wesson]

> Hi Folks, Let's keep out conversions straight.  Mils (.001"), thousandths 
> of
> inch are inch measure.  Microns are metric.  One Mil is 25.4 microns. 
> Four
> Mils or about the diameter of a human hair is about 100 microns.

Yes, I was initially confused by this! In England, 'mil(s)' is a 
commonly-used motor trade abbreviation for 'millimetres' (or sometimes 
milliLitres), and 5-7 mm would be quite thick for a coat of paint...

So, before I penned a sarcastic response to VV, I checked a web dictionary, 
and I found that what y'all call 'mils' are what we here in England call 
'thou' (i.e. thousandths of an inch)!

Now I understand, and it makes some sense! And 'thou' is a very common 
measure here (e.g. when you are setting points or getting an engine 
rebored!). It will be very useful information if I ever get any reboring 
work done in the USA, and I can see that the mil/millimetre confusion could 
have led to some rather disastrous misunderstandings if I had used the terms 
wrongly in that kind of situation!

(;-))

Cheers

Alan