Detail: Making Curved Flooring on Site

I recently had the opportunity to install mahogany flooring on the treads and landing of a large-diameter radiused staircase. One approach to the situation would have been to divide the radius into segments, bandsaw the curve out of straight boards, and join the segments end for end. The problem with this approach is that there would be a lot of wide, very visible joint lines where the wood grain changed. A more natural-looking technique, and the one I chose, is for a single piece of wood to follow the curve, which in this case could only be accomplished by bending. Bending wood is not difficult, but it is time-consuming and does require attention to detail. In short,