Eric:

Don't you worry about the look of your stem. The ONLY thing you have to look for when you are stripping the ends of your boat is the actual gluing of the strips. You don't want to pull away the staples and have your ends opened like a dried fish...

When the glue has cured completely and the staples are pulled away, you can first cut roughly the form of the end with a hand saw and then plane it with a hand saw. The process is really straight forward.

Then, rip 5 or 6 1/16" thickness cedar strips, say 2" width and the length needed to fully cover the planned end plus 2".

Buy a roll of duct tape (you'll need it all). Spread white glue all over the strips and over the planned end. Make a sandwich with ALL the strips (it's better if you've ripped the strip from a single piece of lumber and you can "remember" the original position of them, they'll look like a single piece again!). Take one edge (aprox 1 inch) of you "sandwich" and tight it up with duct tape.

Now, put this taped edge over the planned end (you don't want to put the duct tape on the planned area, but the wood, right?) and start to wrap duct tape around either the "sandwich" and the boat.

You'll notice that the white glue works as lubricant between the strips, and that is really easy to copy the profile of the end of the boat.

Allow two days for a fully cure of the glue.

And now, the magic trick: Take your hand plane and start planning in the direction of the side strips. If you've done a regular job (I'm not talking about serious craftmanship), you'll see that right in front of your eyes a beautiful bent piece of cedar is giving your boat an outstanding look.

Hope this helps.

Marcelo