Paul,
Nothing wrong with recalibrating your mic against a standard every once in a while. When I measure something I'm usually out of practice so I practice on the standard to make sure I'm not using too much gaging pressure. With a ratcheting barrel it's harder to make wrong measurements but it's certainly possible.
'065's original crank had been ground .5 under on the rods. I had it micropolished and then let it sit in a humid garage covered with WD-40, which is a pretty lousy corrosion protection fluid. It rusted. I had it polished again, but the pits didn't come out.
So. . . this crank will become the basis for a regrind to NASCAR bearing size-- turns out that the 2.125" journal size (53.975mm) not only has less friction, but it allows you to use Mahle/Clevite bearings, which are of much higher quality than the Glyco bearings we get these days. A set for a V8 is like $33. Unfortunately the Pauter rods are $1700 for a set of six, but look on the bright side, you save $500 by not having to have your rods resized and balanced. So between saving money on undersize bearings. . . it's only about $1,000 more, or about 5% the cost of a race engine build, to go with the reground journals. That estimate doesn't include the crank mods. . .
