Rusting of neos is a problem in damp climates.
Unplated neo is pretty unstable. I am sure you could get it with the bolt holes if you wanted.
Chrome plating as far as I know is porous and in the good old days car parts were copper, nickel and then chrome plated to try to avoid rusting.
Also I don't believe unprotected neo will survive a plating bath, even the nickel supplied is done by a special process as far as I can find out.
I don't know how hard chrome compares with decorative chrome, it is normally used for hardness rather than protection, it is thicker and may be less porous but I can't see the magnets surviving the plating solutions.
No problem with the magnetic flux in any thickness you could apply.
If you wanted to try plating then I would at least start with the nickel coated magnets. I don't hold out much hope but many of the other proposed ideas don't really work either.
Finding stators for home build machines has always been a stumbling block, it's a little easier now with laser and water jet cutting but small quantities of magnetic steels are near impossible to buy and the whole thing will be very costly.
My advice, forget the slots and wind the coils on the outside of a motor core, You need a bit more magnet without the slots but you solve some other problems.
Winding a skewed core is much the same as winding a straight slot one. You can use pre formed coils or hand wind the turns into the slots ( or use a very expensive winding machine that will do one or the other of those options).
I would imagine balsa and dope would work for blades for a short time, I am sure something will tear them fairly quickly. You can build wooden formers and skin with glass epoxy or kevlar. Such things work very well if you can attach them to the root satisfactorily.
Flux
