A heat gun is all I've ever used and it works great. Sometimes I will wet the wood a little if its going to take a bit more heat over a smaller area (hard bends and twists). It only takes a few minutes to get the stips to lay correctly with no clamps or very little pressure (masking tape is what I use) to hold to the forms while glue between strips is drying.

A few times I tried to shortcut my method and just put the strip in place. I would end up spending more time dealing with the strip holding to the form than if I would have taken the 1 to 5 minutes extra to get it bent properly in the first place. Of course long gradual bends need no heat. The strips will naturally take to the contours.

Tom