I'm surprised that heat bending is so little known. Violin makers have been using it for 500 years.
You can fine tune the bends you've already made by using a heat gun. Do a small section at a time and watch out for scorching. With sections as small as you're working with I'd do a practice piece to get the feel. A cheap 1300 watt gun works just fine.
Charlie

: Well I am trying to build coamings for my double and ran into some
: difficulty.
: I cut 2 pieces of 1/8 inch by 2 inch wide cherry to laminate for each of the
: verticle part of the coamings. I found I had to soak the wood in order to
: make the bends needed (a Guillemot double). I then bent these around a
: form I made of the cockpit cutout. However when the wood dried and I
: attempted to fit one piece to the cockpit opening (before lamination) I
: found several areas it did not fit tightly - my form was not precise to
: the cockpit cutout. The force needed to make it fit seems unreasonable to
: me. I could redo the form to make it more accurate, resoak the wood and
: reclamp it to the form but now wondering if this is the best way to go
: about this job. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
: Thanks
: Joe