This is the way in which I have been working on canon things and I believe that a valuable work could be accomplished by these means without attempting to be canon; which, as shown by MM, would be asking for trouble.
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I suggest first creating the most complete "Tale of Years" possible. This would follow the same pattern as Appendix B in RotK. This tale of years would span from the beginning with The Music of the Ainur through the little information on the Fourth Age as we have.
The point of doing this is to give a really solid organization to the project. Once you have the Tale of Years you could go to each point on the timeline and gather ALL the writings which deal or refer to it. After finishing with this you would have all of tolkien's legendarium together, with multiple copies of many sections throughout, since some sections are going to apply to many points on the timeline. This is being thorough, maybe overly so, and could be debated.
Now you can go through each point on the timeline and if it has only one account and there are no suggested conflicts, it's marked as finished and set aside. Doing this with all points you would be left with those which have conflict or multiple accouts. These would be discussed one by one(not necessarily in order) until a conclusion is met. Some points will be ready to be put aside as complete, but some will never be answered or finished, these would be handled thusly: They would be narrowed down to the least bit of possible interpretations and these points on the timeline would thereafter be presented with such possible interpretations as can not be decided surely against.
At this point the timeline should be in it's most complete phase, a chronological History of Arda, the sum of all Tolkien's Legendarium.
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I make special note of this:
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They would be narrowed down to the least bit of possible interpretations and these points on the timeline would thereafter be presented with such possible interpretations as can not be decided surely against.
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So it wouldn't be canon, but would provide readers with kind of an organized History of Arda, freeing them of the need to examine all the various texts, unless they really wanted to.