What to do with this kind of bending. Everything else is straight but what about
this?

Move the picture over to hide it. The 970's picture tube is actually 36" wide, but they designed it so that an inch on either side is covered up. This is to hide ugly stuff like this.

It's a trade off; you can either have more overscan and straighter lines, or less overscan and bowed lines. Take your pick.

I guess a third option would be to put an inch of tape all the way around the edge of the screen and turn the set into a 32". I bet there would be no bowing at all then.

Move the picture over to hide it. The 970's picture tube is actually 36" wide, but they designed it so that an inch on either side is covered up. This is to hide ugly stuff like this.

It's a trade off; you can either have more overscan and straighter lines, or less overscan and bowed lines. Take your pick.

I guess a third option would be to put an inch of tape all the way around the edge of the screen and turn the set into a 32". I bet there would be no bowing at all then.
It's way more than an inch.