Hi Thomas
I have done a similar work which involved a heavy duty 3-phase ac motor. The thing with 3 phase AC motors is that if you want to reverse their direction, you just need to interchange any two wires out of three, third remaining at its previous contact. I made use of 2-phase contactors for such switching, which were being operated by relays. These relays were commanded by a microcontroller according to the function desired. Also make sure that when you want to stop such a motor always remember to switch-off alteast two of its phases, otherwise you'll end up with a heated motor.
This might help.