One serious drawback to the Round-bed Drummond was the lack of low speeds, achieved on other lathes by a backgear assembly. Although the Drummond company are not believed to have offered a conversion there were third-party suppliers of such items - with the modification illustrated left being a particularly ingenious and well-engineered job. The gears used appear to match the specification the standard changewheels. A previous owner has also converted the lathe to V-belt drive. Another conversion used an train of epicyclic gears built into the largest diameter of the headstock pulley - on the lines of a system incorporated in the American "AA Products" lathe sold by Sears under their Craftsman label as the Model AA109.
For the Drummond at least two designs were developed: the first, by George Gentry, being published in the "Model Engineer" magazine during 1912 and the second, by A. E. Bowyer-Lowe complete with illustrations and detailed drawings in the same magazine on April 1st, 1915.