Illustrated below is a 1944 "de-lux" version of the Craftsman 12-inch lathe with a roller-bearing headstock.  It might be imagined that if a Craftsman lathe was going to be fitted with a roller bearing headstock the simplest and cheapest solution would have been for the Atlas to have supplied machines fitted with a headstock as close as possible in design to that used on their own 10-inch lathe or, at a pinch, take a standard headstock and modify it to carry bolt-on bearing caps. In this case however, not only was the design of the headstock casting and  belt-guard supports different the backgear assembly was bolted to the back of the headstock - presumably (though this was not mentioned in the catalogs) to allow the lathe to be offered at a lower cost if it was not fitted..