On LeBlond Lathes of 15" to 23" capacity, the front and rear spindle bearing were of different construction. The front bearing, being the more heavily loaded of the two, was formed by shrinking a hardened-steel sleeve onto the spindle and then finish grinding it in position. The bearing then ran directly in the cast iron of the headstock - an ideal combination of surfaces for long and reliable operation. The left-hand bearing, being much less heavily stressed was formed from traditional "babbit " bearing metal. LeBlond claimed that the two bearings would wear at the same rate, and so keep the spindle in as near perfect alignment as possible - however, they did acknowledge that both the design and material specified for headstock bearings were contentious matters - and were therefore prepared to supply disbelievers with either phosphor bronze, or babbit bearings, on request.

The "Single-Pulley Driven Headstock" - internal view. The geared headstock provided twelve spindle speeds, with the use of thirteen gears, all of which were made of nickel-alloy steel, heat treated and hardened- - the bores being ground concentric with the pitch circle after heat treating to ensure that they ran as quietly as possible.
The headstock components were of robust proportions, the gears being unusually wide faced and of large diameter. 

On the open flat-belt drive headstocks LeBlond employed a form of clutched double backgear which, once engaged, could be instantly changed between the two low-speed ratios by the single stroke of a lever. This gave the lathe three speed ranges: open high-speed, intermediate low-speed and slow-speed.

On the very largest LeBlond lathes of 33" and 36" capacity, a "Triple backgear" was offered which was, in effect, a backgear built onto a backgear. This enabled the lathes to run not only at the high speeds necessary for smaller work, but also at the very low speeds which the cutting tools of the day demanded when taking heavy cuts on the largest diameter the lathes could accommodate.