Like the peeps said, leave the rubber wheels. I've got a Rockwell Delta 20" metal cutting bandsaw and it has rubber wheels.
You are going to want to change the pulley ratios to get the speed way down as was mentioned. Perhaps a VFD too. A 3/4 HP VFD is not too much money, but I'd try to get in the right ballpark with a pulley change and then go VFD to fine tune it to keep the torque up.
BTW, the Harbor Freight blade welder is cheap and works fine. Blades are a lot cheaper if you weld them yourself and it isn't hard to do.
Cheers,
BW
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