Thanks Michael. I have set the measurements to meters for a few reasons: the caddy (the final object) is 2 meters long, but most of all, when exporting to Maxwellrender (.obj format) then everything blows up by 100 if I set it to cm. and I go back and forth a few times between moi and mw, so switching the units is a pain. the object I had trouble with is 1 mm thick, but of course with the rounding it is a matter of tenths of mm, so that is indeed a very small measurement.
If there was an easier method to communicate with mw, it would be great. meanwhile, I will switch the units when I run into this sort of trouble!

thanks again
wim