Duracraft VS-312 Bandsaw restoration (1): Initial evaluation

 I picked up a12 inch bandsaw from KA5VZE (brother Mike). It is very similar to my Craftsman 10 inch bandsaw but with some significant differences.  Below is a view of the saw.  Note the saw blade is missing. 

The saw was manufactured in 1983, so it's 41 years old.  As shown below, the motor appears to be a 1/2 HP single phase induction motor, nominally 1725 RPM, drawing 8 amps max. 

The manufacturer's label in upper front of the saw, as shown below.  The saw is shown as a 12 inch bandsaw, with two speeds,  350 ft/min and 1300 ft/min.  It's a puzzle on how the speeds are switched,  since it's not obvious. It was probably done using a second belt and drive pulley.  

The saw has 3 separate 6 inch wheels: 1) a drive wheel at the bottom, 2) an idler wheel bottom left, and 3) a tension setting idler at the top. The photo below shows the drive wheel. Note the belt drives the outside of the wheel and not the geared part of the wheel.  So the belt must have acted as the blade tire on that wheel.  This may be some sort of hack done by a previous owner, or this could be the way the saw was designed.  In this configuration the blade speed would be close to 300 ft/min.  If the belt were made shorter and used to drive the geared part of the wheel, the blade speed would be close to 1300 ft/min.

The wheels don't use ball bearing but use cast in 1 mm bushings.  The bushings are a worn.  If the bushing needs to be replaced, then I'll have to fabricate a new wheel, either 3d printed or made out of wood.  The photo below shows on of the cast-in-place bushings. 

The upper guide is worn, and substitutions have been made for the blade guides.  The saw backstop is a bushing mounted cylinder whose axis is normal to the blade travel. 

The bottom guide is similarly worn, and will need some TLC. Quarter inch plastic saw guides are installed and a roller type blade backstop is used.

The motor drive gear is worn out and needs to be replaced.  The teeth are stripped out where the belt would be when the drive belt would be if properly driving the small gear on the drive wheel.  The motor shaft is 10 mm in diameter. 

I have ordered the drive belt , saw blades and tires for the saw.  I've received everything except the drive belt.  I'm currently working on 3D printing a replacement motor drive gear.   Restoring this baby should be lots of fun.