Although the miller could be driven by a conventional wall or ceiling-mounted flat-belt drive countershaft unit, Ames offered the choice of a 37" long, 26.5" wide and 26" self-contained cabinet stand and drive unit. A 0.5hp motor was fitted in the left-hand side, behind two doors, whilst to the right the stand was cut away to allow space for the operator to sit whilst working.
The layout of the drive was very similar to that used for the bench lathe; a hard-wood cross member, supported on tubular supports, carried a bronze housing the front of which was removable. Within the casing were three sets of constantly-meshed helical gears, running within an oil-tight bath and each fitted with a heavily-built steel-friction clutch which allowed instantaneous changes of speed.
The drive from the motor entered from the 7" diameter pulley on the lower shaft and passed via the gears and clutches to the upper shaft which carries a cone pulley to match that of the machine beneath it. The shafts ran on double-row ball races whilst the clutch thrust was also of the ball-bearing type.
The clutches were controlled by foot pedals, connected by wires to their engagement mechanisms.

A simpler mounting was available in the form of a bench, 36.5" long, 21.25" wide and 26" high and supported on four cast-iron legs.
At the rear, cast-iron lugs supported two columns to carry the overhead countershaft, which could be of either the "gear-driven" type described above, or a conventional pattern with fast-and-loose pulleys controlled by foot-operated stricker bars.