United States and Imperial Units
In the United States, and prior to metrification in Britain, Canada and Australia, architect's scales are/were marked as a ratio of x inches-to-the-foot (typically written as x"=1'-0"). For example one inch measured from a drawing with a scale of "one-inch-to-the-foot" is equivalent to one foot in the real world (a scale of 1:12) whereas one inch measured from a drawing with a scale of "two-inches-to-the-foot" is equivalent to six inches in the real world (a scale of 1:6). It is not to be confused with a true unitless ratio (inches to inches)-- a 1:50 architectural scale would be a 1:60 unitless scale.
Typical scales used in the United States are:
- Full scale, with inches divided into sixteenths of an inch
The following scales are generally grouped in pairs using the same dual-numbered index line (one scale is read from the right, and the other scale is read from the left):
- three-inches-to-the-foot (3"=1'-0") (ratio equivalent 1:4)/one-and-one-half-inch-to-the-foot (1½"=1'-0") (1:8)
- one-inch-to-the-foot (1"=1'-0") (1:12)/one-half-inch-to-the-foot (1/2"=1'-0") (1:24)
- three-quarters-inch-to-the-foot (3/4"=1'-0") (1:16)/three-eighths-inch-to-the-foot (3/8"=1'-0") (1:32)
- one-quarter-inch-to-the-foot (1/4"=1'-0") (1:48)/one-eighth-inch-to-the-foot (1/8"=1'-0") (1:96)
- three-sixteenths-inch-to-the-foot (3/16"=1'-0") (1:64)/three-thirty-seconds-inch-to-the-foot (3/32"=1'0") (1:128)
Read more about this topic: Architect's Scale
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, imperial and/or units:
“It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the United States there is more space where nobody is is than where anybody is.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“If the Union is now dissolved it does not prove that the experiment of popular government is a failure.... But the experiment of uniting free states and slaveholding states in one nation is, perhaps, a failure.... There probably is an “irrepressible conflict” between freedom and slavery. It may as well be admitted, and our new relations may as be formed with that as an admitted fact.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Insensibility, of all kinds, and on all occasions, most moves my imperial displeasure.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Even in harmonious families there is this double life: the group life, which is the one we can observe in our neighbour’s household, and, underneath, another—secret and passionate and intense—which is the real life that stamps the faces and gives character to the voices of our friends. Always in his mind each member of these social units is escaping, running away, trying to break the net which circumstances and his own affections have woven about him.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)