How do you say 0025 in machinist terms?

Answer 1

To a machinist twenty-five ten-thousandths or two and a half thousands are both acceptable answers. It all really depends on what the common tolerance of the shop is. In a shop that maintains tolerances in the thousandths of an inch (.001) their jargon usually reflects that. .0015 is one and a half, .002 is two, .0007 is seven-tenths.

In a shop that holds tight tolerances in the ten-thousandths of an inch range they would see .0012 as twelve-thousandths of an inch.

Machinists are bad about jargon. When confronted about my choice of referencing tolerances I usually use this as an example. is $2,000 two thousand dollars or twenty-hundred? They are the exact same but twenty hundred sounds funny, it's not technically incorrect but a less common way to refer to the same thing!