The iron tools used to speed up gluing, in the Diderot's Enciclopedie, plate XII:

My tool is a simple electric purfling bender, that you can find in a good aeronautics model shop:

This is a tool usually not much used by "normal" luthiers, but is well known by the restorers.
Its use is indispensable in two operations of the building: the gluing of the rib's corners and the setting of the "shoulder" ribs to the neck.