The 4-speed baby Grand drill was, for a machine aimed at the amateur market, a curiously designed affair. At the rear of the machine, level with the base, was a right-angle drive gearbox to which, conveniently almost any motor or even foot drive system could be attached. The need for this arrangement arose because the entire head assembly, instead of having a quill sliding within it, was moved bodily up and down the main column by a rack-and-pinion action. If the head and its pulley moved, then so must the matching drive pulley which was therefore arranged to slide on, and be driven by, a long vertical shaft which emerged from the top of the gearbox. The drive was intended to be by a round leather "gut" rope but a modern, narrow-section V belt can be used instead.