Neil,
Good fortune favours the brave, hope you have assistance to watch your gear my experience has taught me to be cautious worst experience when a guy before me left the lathe run in reverse so when I proceeded to demo drilling a blank burned the drill egg on face, the lathe was a VL100 identical almost to my own however I have never used mine in reverse catching chucks at 3000 revs not for me. Have success.
Kind regards Peter.