Homebuilt handmade "3 phase" electric motor

[skimask]

Yep, that is why synchronous motors do not have good starting torque.

Then how do they get those AC types to work in electric cars (the ones with AC motors anyways) and the like?

I do not bring the 2 phase thing up often. You should see the look on an inpectors face when I label a sub panel "2 PHASE".

I checked the wiring at my house awhile back on a 'scope. I've got 2 legs of 120VAC, both in sync with each other, not 180 or 60 or 120 out of phase. What's up with that?

Might be able to use welding rod. Laminates are used in transformers to suppress eddy currents, in small motors for cost. Large motors are cast iron/steel with a second pour for the aluminun. Air gap should be the same for magnetic and non magnetic parts. Sounds like you have punch press, How about a lathe? To attach things for testing, J B Weld.

No lathe, no punch press, just access to a foot shear and a decent ruler, should be able to punch out a pile of decent rectangles in short amount of time. I wasn't going to use JBWeld, just whatever epoxy I could find that would work reasonably well on sheet metal. If that doesn't work, I'll pop-rivet the parts together. If I had a plasma cutter, I'd cut out chunks of frame rail and use that instead of the stacked up rectangles.
I don't have any welding rod handy, and I've got all this old scrap auto sheet metal laying around.

Can you imagine the spinning in Tesla's head. He reportedly modeled this all in his head.

I have trouble enough with 2 dimensions, let alone more than 3...by that I mean trying to imagine the interaction between voltage, current, and magnetic lines of flux...all at the same time...

Do ya think it matters much that I'm driving the thing using square waves vs. a halfway decent sine wave?