Zeroing material in the low profile vise

[slowdissolve (Ann Sullivan-Larson)]

I have a piece of brass that is 1" x .625" x 1.625" I would like to carve a contour on it and since the contour I want comes quite close to the edges, I’d like to use the low-profile vise to hold it down.

The piece of material, with the shortest dimension as the top, is just slightly shorter than the clamp pieces of the vise. I really have no idea how to zero out the material to accommodate the vise pieces and not carve into those. Should I put some filler underneath the brass to lift it up to where I can use the probe on it? Should I be able to use pieces shorter than the clamps?

[nikp (Nicholas Palmer)]

I believe you put a parallel under the piece. aka a machined chunk of metal known to be of a certain dimension and parallelism. Amazon

[Able (Donovan)]

You could also use the painters tape super glue method instead of a vise or clamp a scrap piece of wood in the vise surface it then do the same tape glue method.