: Thanks for the tips and the pictures. Nice boat.

: A few more questions. How did you get your stems so neat? I must
: have totally overdone it with the epoxy because mine had a ton
: of squeeze out and are a mess. Guess it doesn't matter - I'll
: just clean them up a bit.

: So the strips are trimmed to butt up against the inner stem and
: then the outer is glued right on top of the inner before
: shaping? Or do they overlap the inner, leaving a groove to fit
: the outer down into?

The inner stem will need some "shaping" so that the strips lay flat against it. I use a "shinto wrasp" to bevel the edge of the inner stem to get it at an angle that will allow the strips to lay flat. This provides a better glue surface. The angle changes as you advance from the shear up towards the keel so bevel for a couple of strips at a time. Try to keep the width of the strips + inner stem consistent so when you glue on your outer stem, it will be not be skinny on one end and wide on the other...

To install the outer stem, you trim the strips flat against the inner stem and create a nice, flat surface to glue the outer stem to. You trim down to the inner stem up to where the inner stem stops at the first form. There is no overlap. And if a strip or two don't fit perfectly, use some thickened epoxy to fill any gaps. I had some gaps and that's how I dealt with them. You have to look really close to find them now as there are 2 layers of 6oz glass plus 1 layer of 9oz tape on the stems. Really rugged.....

Bob