long range....water will only allow the wood to get to 212-215 degrees. Wood burns at 440 degrees. It bends best if the wood is warmed above 250 degrees. Or so my experience has taught me in the past 30 years of bending gunstocks. I use Raw Linseed Oil on a rag which is wrapped around the wrist of the gunstock. I have heard others using other vegetable/seed oil products. Each is trial and error. The key is to get the wood warm enough to move easily and without breaking. .
If you want to try something different than linseed oil, I used Canola - it has a high flash point so it burn on the stock. I can't say that is it better or worse than Linseed however as I haven't tried that.
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/qclHjMQ.jpg)
