Don’t know if I’m late to the party or what, but I just decided to try using some gauge blocks to set my project zero, and it’s made things so. much. easier.
I use a lot of rough sawn lumber, which I’ll frequently resaw on my cheap bandsaw. I usually get 2-3mm of drift even on small lengths. Previously, my project zeroing process involved getting a bunch of random stock thickness measurements using calipers, finding an average, trying to make sure that the corner that I’m using the BitZero isn’t significantly higher or lower than the the stock in the middle of my project, changing the .c2d file to plug in the new stock thickness, checking the simulation to make sure the thickness change didn’t do anything weird, then cutting the piece, only to find out the measurements were a little off and I ended up making some pretty shapes in my waste board or worse, leaving a little extra on the bottom which requires using a router to clean things up and give the piece a clean edge. Then repeat the whole process again for the next piece of stock…
Today I decided to cut a couple gauge blocks from 10 - 22mm. Instead of fiddling with everything I just mentioned, I just took some basic thickness measurements on my tape measure which took about 15 seconds (the stock thicknesses were between 10 - 13.5mm), threw the 14mm gauge block in the workholding corner and use the BitZero to get a good zero. Then just threw the stock in and ran the job as needed.
Everything came out perfect. Ya, on some of the thinner stock I end up cutting air for a pass or two, but the tradeoff of not having to fiddle with things is completely worth it (for me). I don’t know if everyone else has been doing this forever or not, but I was pretty excited and figured I’d share in case anyone else hasn’t tried it yet.