Mark, wood stumps are still used...I have two maple ones I use myself, along with leather shot bags for rough shaping. This is used to start the shrinking process for deep curvatures. The english wheel and planishing hammer are used to smooth out the large dents formed on the stump, leather bag etc.
Here's a good video of Wray Schelin creating a Jaguar mini-fender and he explains the use of a stump starting at 11:14 into the video.
http://youtu.be/xeXtezrmK3M
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