So, just as an afterthought on all this - I mean, wow... that picture of the bridge of the RB - 10 in this original post oddly enough ended up being the solution of what to do about that huge space running up the center of the neck on my RB - 8 !!
How so ??

The angles in that picture, I started thinking that if I could angle the individual bridge details, then maybe I could bring the spacing to where it should be.

To my astonishment, it totally worked !!

At the nut end, an allan key is being used but I have an easy more proper solution down the road.

Took like 10, maybe 15 minutes, and now she totally plays like a dream

Thank you so much to whoever took these pictures for the reverb ad, and to the kind soul who posted the link here.

I will talk more about this instrument in the modification thread, and add the picture of the solution of what to do about the nut flap gap...

The move to the beam seems to make perfect sense, given that with the Railboard the headstock is a bolt-on component?

I wonder if adding the serial number now is part of the CNC instructions when the beam is milled from its blank?