Once I started soaking over night or at least a few hours then boiling, I haven’t had a problem. Woods are different tho. Osage can be heated with a heat gun and bent dry, but if your weary of that, boil. There’s no right way, but there is a wrong way, you’ll know it’s wrong with it splits. But even when they splinters, it’s usually fixable by rasping away the split, or if it’s too deep, a small lam of the same wood, most won’t even notice.