I am relieved to report that the wood from Finland bent like a dream. Here it is just out of the mold after a day of drying.
The wood is European Birch "Betula Pendula". It became quite plastic when wetted, bent very easily and came out of the mold after a day of drying, stiff, hard and absolutely zero springback. surely the easiest wood to bend in my experience.
Now the ends are trimmed to make a perfect fit on the soundboard. Tomorrow I will glue it down and secure it with the tentalones.
Just to be sure everything fit, i set the back on. It will be fine. When some nice brown binding is set around the edges this will be a very pretty instrument,