This note is just an admission that I must make and hopefully save others from years of tedious measuring and fitting. I have been a woodworker for over 57 years and I thought that I had pretty well mastered the minutae of the craft, having build everything from large break front pieces to custom work to, most recently, a concentration on wood models and toys. It is because of the last discipline that I have found my measuring nirvana in the use of set-up blocks. I have been using them for a while now, in both metric and imperial measurements, and I have never found set up and accuracy to be easier than it is now. Setup blocks are incredible for the many uses they bring to any project, from correct dimension measurements to using them to insure that a piece is accurately glued to another piece at precisely 7/16" or 22mm. I even use them for squaring up pieces that are glued together. Now, why the "Ah Ha" moment? simply because I have finally realized just how great they are and how they have made my woodworking life so much easier. I've owned them for a while but I have not been using them regularly. . .until model making and toy making entered my woodworking life. Not a day in the shop goes by when I do not find some use for my sets of Setup blocks. They no longer inhabit some drawer somewhere. Rather, they, along with my trusty digital calipers, are always either on the bench or on the side table of the saw or on the bandsaw. I use them every day I am in the shop.
I just thought I would offer up this bit of "slow learner" experience and say that no matter our age or our years of experience, there is always something to learn and to share.
Happy shop days to all.