Well, I have been working with the initial draft artwork for the workbee spine. And it is as I imagined. Insanely small and pushing the envelope of being able to be cut, folded and built.

I had some ability to cut them, and even score and fold them. But it is so small that it may be beyond what the current artwork can allow to be built, and I might need to simplify it some more.

The part in these images has a flap that should fold back
under the rest, which is sticking out on the front.

As you can see, I did manage to get one cut out, and even folded. Which given the size of this, as evidenced by the image above with the penny in it for scale, should be considered a win. But that was without punching the hole for the fiber optic filament to thread it down onto the workbee upper hull.

I am also not even sure how I can glue the side faces down flush with the center aft face strip which is sandwiched between them.

To add to the challenge I have not even fully factored in painting this to get it to the correct color. Though printing this up with the grey PVC tape I have, like I have for the other “wrap” pieces, is another option to try.

One idea I have is using the grey paint as the adhesive itself and simply filling in the empty cavity created between the side faces and the center strip with paint.

This would color it from the back side (since this is clear transparency film) and simultaneously serve as the adhesive. Not too sure if that will work or not but that is something I will try next.

While it was somewhat successful, the roof face piece of PVC tape I had intentionally cut a little longer than it should be, creating a slight ledge off the back of the roof. So while I was able to punch a hole into and push onto the “post” the fiber optic filament on the roof made, the ledge created by the PVC tape pieces caused the side faces of the spine piece to splay out to the sides. This was because the roof PVC tape would not allow the expect corner roof/aft face edge to fall where it needed to.

I did try and thread one down over the upper hull part I assembled the other day which had the fiber optic filaments and the PVC tape “wrap” applied. It was somewhat encouraging. IN drawing up the artwork,I made it so the “spine” piece had accounted for the thickness of a single piece of PVC tape to be applied as the aft face “wrap”, but this roof piece as I had cut it and had attached to th workbee was just a long enough to cause the problems. I could force one side face down but t would pop up the spine off the roof and splay out the opposite side face.

Current “spine assembly” artwork.

I will try a new upper-hull assembly with a more accurately cut roof piece of the printed PVC, and see if that will do the trick. I also have some thoughts about simplifying the artwork regardless. Since I spotted some refinement that the detailing design art, I can also experiment with the layout of the piece itself which might be easier to “assemble” and fit onto the workbee.

But this the level of small size is certainly scaling the Mt. Everest in hand fabrication to pull off.