Overhead Countershaft Drive on Unit Bench. This was a particularly well-thought-out system with as many as 24 speeds and which carried its countershaft on neat cast-iron uprights attached to the bench. The countershaft spindles ran on ball bearings, there was a built-in drive to power toolpost-mounted accessories and the speeds could be selected by either hand controls - as shown in the illustration - or foot pedals. However, despite all these conveniences, by the 1940s this type of arrangement was beginning to look distinctly old-fashioned .

Unit bench with Horizontal Safety Drive. Yet anther variation on the open-bench mounting but this time with a rear-mounted countershaft fitted with an electric motor having spindles emerging from both ends. Whilst one motor shaft was utilised to drive the lathe-spindle countershaft, the other was employed to power the counterweighted "overhead". This stand is fitted with cast-iron legs, but if the customer whished to save weight, the option was available to replace them with ones fabricated from pressed steel; at the same time the threaded steel tie rods at the back of the stand were changed for ones made from flat strip.