Well, I emailed Mike at Grain, regarding my situation with the nose of the board, and he provided me with some excellent advice. He suggested that a noseblock would be best in this situation because it would add strength and imporve the aesthetics. I took Mike's advice and cut the nose off the board. As I was cutting the tip of the nose off, I felt as though I might be making a mistake, due to my limited woodworking abilities.
I glued up some redwood and poplar (I didn't have enough walnut and cedar to match the tail block exactly) on to the nose. I wasn't sure that I could make the two pieces of nose block match and get the correct angle when gluing them to the board, so I left a little triangular area open. I glued in a pine scrap to complete the nose block. It ain't pretty, but it's rock solid and solves the initial problem.
