: I think you're talking about an internal stem piece attached to the
: bow/sten forms. that is actually optional, and when I build I
: rarely do that anymore. It does add some strength and a place to
: land your strips, but it's more work and adds weight, so I just
: fit the strips together at the ends where the strips meet and
: glue them there.. After the hull is stripped I plane a flat
: surface on the exterior of the bow and stern about
: 1/2"-3/4" wide. I then take about 3-5 1/8" strips
: of hardwood (usually ash or padauk), butter them up with a
: mixture of epoxy and fumed silica (consistency of peanut butter)
: and them lay them on the stem ends (see picture), holding them
: in place with packing tape. After they cure I take the tape off
: and taper the stems with a block plane into the hull for a nice
: finished look.

: Bryan K

I used cedar internal stems too... I beveled the edges of the cedar end forms, and then cut about an inch of width of the beveled part off. Re-attached it with a few spots of hot glue. When stripping I glued the strips to the bevel, and when the glassing was done, I just broke the hot glue bond to leave the stems in the hull when I pulled it off the forms.