Thanks for the responses.

I'm building Nick's Guillemot design and I have both books. On a good week, I get about 1 1/2 days to work on the kayak. I wish it was a little faster. The details on how to finish off the inner/outer stem are clear when you look at the youtube videos. Since this is my first boat, I run into situations where the forum opinions are just as helpful if not more helpful. Being my first boat, I had some rather ugly joints near the front that I can blend away using an outer stem.

The shear line, essentially, splits the inner stem into two pieces. The part that would go with the deck is about 2 inches long and wraps around the stem extension plywood piece. I'm assuming that I would just make a clean cut of the stem and hot melt it to the plywood before starting on the deck. I'll try to take a picture today.

On the subject of glassing, our weather in CA has been fairly warm; but, the garage temperature rarely gets above 50F. I've read a few different posts about the hull moving around if not attached to the forms when glassing. If this is the case, I won't be starting on the deck until spring time.