The VL arrived yesterday after a couple of “delays”. I’ll give credit to Ultra Tec… they kept me informed during the process with emails and two phone calls.
I haven’t had a chance to cut anything, as I was busy getting everything set up. The machine comes with a thirty-page, spiral bound manual, and the engineer in me had to read every word… LOL
My first impression is that this thing is built like a tank. Everything comes calibrated from the factory, so it was ready-to-go right out of the box. A perfectly-machined calibration block was included for the Digital Angle Display (DAD) with the instructions detailed in the manual. I tested everything anyway and found everything perfect. The speed controller is preset to 0-1850 RPM… I even tested it with a timing light and found the entire range exactly as described in the manual.
The machine came with twelve dops… pretty typical. However, I wanted to replace my old set of Graves dops with the keyed ones that fit the quill of the new machine. I purchased the entire set of thirty UT dops and found them to be amazing. For example, the cone dops have an extra “cavity” at the bottom to protect the culet when transferring. The supplied transfer jig is machined from one piece and is going to rival the Polymetric fixtures that I currently use… very well designed.
One major change from previous UT models is that the “rubber” splash-guard has been replaced with a plastic one. It still fits into the drain “funnel”, but appears to be an improvement… time will tell.
I just took two quick snap-shots yesterday… posted below. I’ll report on the first cut impressions in a few days.