The drive system was interesting and reflected a practice normally reserved for toolroom and better-quality lathes where, in order to prevent the transmission of vibration-induced "gear-tooth" marks to the turned surface, the main transmission gearbox was mounted in the cabinet base next to its (3 hp) electric motor. The 9-speed gearbox was a very heavy-duty affair, oil-pump lubricated and containing forged-alloy, hardened and ground gears; the speeds were changed by two concentrically-mounted levers on the front face of the stand.

The drive to the headstock was by triple V belts that wrapped around the headstock pulley between its bearings and whose tension could be set by altering the setting of a (patented) eccentrically-mounted output pulley on the gearbox. The headstock itself contained a conventional backgear assembly, clustered immediately behind the front bearing, so producing a total of eighteen spindle speeds from 27 to 757 rpm or, fitted with the optional high-speed pulley set, 35 to 1000 RPM. An America L0 taper (or alternatively a plain flange) was fitted to the hardened and ground, 5 Morse taper spindle which was bored 117/32" (39 mm) and ran on twin opposed precision taper rollers at the front and a parallel roller race at the rear.

The pump-lubricated screwcutting gearbox could generate either 45 English or 20 metric threads at the flick of a lever whilst additional gears of 30T, 66T and 21T were supplied as standard to extend the threading range to pitches below the 23/4 to 80 t.p.i and 0.1875 to 5mm range offered as standard. A range of Diametral and metric module pitches were also available and listed on the comprehensive chart above the gearbox.

Changewheel bracket with nuts on the front of the gear studs allowing quick changes of ratio when special threads had to be cut.