Ran a job last summer where we held half a thou all day but only after letting the spindle spin for 45 minutes. Skipped the warmup one Monday to save time and scrapped the first four parts before lunch. That guy at the booth wasn't lying, and 3 tenths over 4 passes sounds about right for a cold machine.

My dad's fan is held up by hopes, prayers, and one screw I stripped last Thanksgiving.

Check the tires on that idea before you roll with it. Leaving a blade tensioned overnight is not what snapped it, and backing it way off after every use is not doing you any favors either. Blades snap from metal fatigue, a bad weld, or a cheap blade that has run its life, not from sitting tight for twelve hours. Backing tension off just a little, like a quarter turn, is fine if the saw sits for weeks, but the guys who crank it down every single day are the ones chasing their tracking and fighting crooked cuts. The real fix is a decent blade and swapping it out before it quits on you mid order.