I'm in the 'glue the laminations all at once, on the boat' school.

I'm in the "fake out the laminated stems" school.

A contrasting stem edge can look cool, I agree.

Laminating up internal, external stems, is a vestigial (Ted Moores) method of canoe building. Few people know that Ted's stems were never covered with glass, as he found a second layer of glass was visible with his glassing method. See page 117, photo 9-9 and text below photo of "KayakCraft". Also no stem glass coverage in "CanoeCraft". His method is neither right nor wrong, just his method, but you should know why he chooses to do it that way and decide if this is the way you wish to do it.

For me it's just extra work, extra weight, and not needed because I know how to gracefully use bias cut fiberglass cloth to reinforce the stems and make this layer invisible. See photo below.

The stem edges are very strong with strips joined at the stems protected with a single layer of bias cut cloth. If you have problems with the stem edges getting banged up, spend more time learning paddle control.

I "fake out" the contrasting stem look with applied veneers.

rob