A poor man's cutwater

You may ask: what the heck is a cutwater?  The cutwater is a piece added to the stem of the boat for protection. It divides the flow of water to each side, hence the name.  On old wooden boats it also supported the carved figurehead at the bow.  On classic wooden boats from the 50's, the cutwater was a polished metal piece that covered the stem as shown on this classic Garwood:

Builders of wooden boats can either make their own or have it made by someone who is skilled in shaping and welding stainless steel.  Many builders of Glen-L boats use Mike, the cutwater guy: http://www.cutwaters.com/
Here is a Glen-L build that used Mike to fabricate a cutwater.  (I stole your picture, Chris. ;-)

I still am thinking of attempting to make my own out of aluminum and polishing it.  However, with everything else going on and wanting to get the boat in the water, I decided to use plain old rub rail to make a poor man's cutwater.  I bought a length of 3/4" stainless steel rub rail and just curved it down my stem and attached it.  The rub rail is hollow backed so it fits around the rounded point on the stem.  It is also thin enough to bend fairly easily.

Since I have a bow eye, I used two pieces.  The picture above is the piece from the bow eye to the keel.

This piece goes from the bow to the top of the bow eye.   A full cutwater would also hide some of the screw holes and construction marks you can see in the above picture.  They also add a much more classic look to the boat.  We'll just have to wait.