At this point I made a little mistake when moving my files, and thus I had to redo 80% of all the modelling I had done within a day. I became forcefully reacquainted with the spline tool in Solidworks. As a result, there were some changes made between the model shown in fig 6. above and the final product shown below in fig 9.

I made a few more prototypes to make sure that the parts would fit together, such as the cover boards. I checked to see if the 1/8" dowel did in fact fit in the holes, as well as whether or not I would be able to fit the needle I had through the holes for sewing on the leather. Once that checked out and the files were finalized and .dxf files were generated, I sent everything to the laser cutter and then started assembling the book. I checked to see that the leather still fit before gluing everything together, and it just fit around the spine to the line of holes on the front and back covers (those brilliant planning skills though).

I was not sure at this point whether I should leave the cloth tapes bare as shown in fig 7. though it would not have fit with this particular design, as I still planned on having the wooden pieces on the front cover. I decided to move ahead with adding the leather instead of leaving the spine as it was, even though it also would have been aesthetically pleasing.