Band-Saw-O-Rama

It's a band saw.  It was almost free:  the man who gave it to me had it given to him 15 or more years ago by a man who said, "It's yours, but if I ever need to cut something I'll want to borrow it back."  I suppose this arrangement is transferable, at least to the extent that I don't want to cause problems for the man who lent me the saw.

I will call this arrangement "glending," as in, "I have a band saw that some guy gave me, but maybe he'll want it back someday - I can't give it to you, but I can glend it to you."  How prevalent is this practice?  I bet it's more common with tools than anything else.

There are two 12" diameter wheels on which the blade runs, so it's called a 12" band saw.  This means that you can put about 12" of material to the left of the blade before your work piece runs into the housing.

The blade that's on here is 1/4" wide, made for cutting wood.  After I got the saw into rough adjustment (Craftsman manuals are available online), I gave it a shot on my laminate.  Well, not so good.  It got about an inch in and gave up.  There are several possible reasons for this:

1. The blade was dull already
2. The blade was not very dull, but it was not of good quality
3. The saw was poorly adjusted by me
4. I fed the work too fast
5. Plastic needs to be cut much more slowly

I did some internet research and I'm putting most of my bets on 2 (crappy blade) and 5 (special needs of plastic).  Because that's what I've really got here:  a chunk of plastic contaminated with wood.  If I can cut the plastic layers, the wood will go along with it (as long as the operation doesn't involve any liquids that might destroy the wood itself).  This is not just any plastic - it's got glass fibers in it, and the two-part epoxy matrix is pretty horrible in itself.

Band saw speed is specified in the US as FPM (blade feet per minute).  Wood-cutting band saws generally go 2500-3500.  Saws meant for cutting ferrous metals generally go 100-150.  Non-ferrous metals such as aluminum go up from there.  I've heard 700 FPM as an upper limit for plastic.  I'll aim for ferrous metal speeds, as that will make make for a very versatile saw.

Between the motor shaft (at the bottom of the picture) and the drive shaft (the bottom 12" blade wheel) I have to insert some reduction.  The motor is specified to run at 1725 RPM, no load.  The diameter of the pulley on the motor shaft is 2.5".  The diameter of the pulley on the driven shaft is 5".  

• 1725 * 2.5 / 5 = 862.5 (this is the driven wheel RPM)
• 862.5 * (12 * 3.1416) = 32515.56 (this is the blade inches per minute - the second part is PI * diameter, which gives circumference of a circle)
• 32515.56 / 12 = 2709.63 (this is the blade FPM, which agrees with the Craftsman manual)

To get to 100 FPM I need a 27:1 reduction!  There are a couple ways of doing this:

1. Keep the little pulley on the motor shaft, then go to a big pulley on an intermediate (jack) shaft, then go from a little pulley also on that shaft to a big pulley on the driven shaft.
2. Find some kind of motor that goes slower.  A gear motor, or a DC treadmill motor, are two ways it's been done.

I'd like the saw to be convertible between 2700 and 100, for maximum versatility.  This is going to require some backwards engineering, where I will stumble in the footsteps of people who've done this before, moving   farther from my guitar again.

I am a monkey.