It's good to see your project moving forward.
I'm thinking that a horizontal milling machine could do this with some simple tooling. There would be a urethane drive roller mounted in the spindle. A round tipping tool would be mounted to the bed. A long fence would also be mounted to the bed. The table is held still and the urethane roller drives the blank over the tipping wheel. The mill bed is covered with mdf to provide a sliding surface at the height required to air bend the shape of each flute.Then the fence is moved 2.6" and the next flute is rolled.
So the mill becomes a big sturdy bead roller. I'll find some time this week to try this.
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