Whoever decided that Oz should use metric and imperial screw gauges in parallel should be sentenced to rethreading all the imperial ones to metric with a blunt kitchen knife.
All I wanted was to replace the {broken|lost|ugly|mismatched} cupboard door knobs I had successfully and stolidly ignored for about a year now. So I went to Bunnings (which is open until 2100 weekdays - perfect for the DIYist in need of a quick fix of his favourite drug) and bought 5 plastic globes packaged with screws. Screws looked ok, plastic packaging didn't mention a type so I assumed (Ass-You-Me) they were metric.
Well, in fact I didn't care about them being metric, martian or whatever - until I realised they were too short, by about 6mm. Nothing in my scrounge bag matched the required length. Sigh.
Next day: I measure an existing screw. Caliper says "about 4mm - give or take" which is not surprising given that the caliper is a cheap plastic POS, but I don't think even an expensive one would have helped me much. Note that I'm still not thinking "imperial?".
I visit another hardware shop, see a collection of metric screws in suitable lengths, buy them. In the evening I try them: no cookie, of course.
Carefully squinting at the screws side-by-side I finally realise my mistake. Second trip to the store, look for something not-quite-unlike-4mm in the small rack of imperial anachronisms, and voila.
Now I'm proud owner of a set of misleading imperial screws and matching nuts, ready to wreak havoc on any 4mm metric gear in the vicinity *maniac cackle*!
