Thanks guys! Here are some pics of the set up. I am going to make special soft jaws to hold the part for OP 3. I had it just resting on parallels with maybe .050 clearance between the vise and the tool.... I like to live dangerously.... The unsupported area gave me the rougher finish on that face.
That looks great. I like the way you built a bracket for a radial mount caliper in a single piece of aluminum.
Its one more step to do it this way but I feel the end result is better! Many radial arrangements use a sub bracket that converts axial mount to radial.
I used a form tap to make the threads so they should be plenty strong. I am going to tweak the tool path to add a chamfer before I tap so the little bump doesn't swell past the face when the tap goes in.