Any tips for refurbishing/repairing paper manuals/inserts?

Recently I got a great deal on a "flood damaged" copy of Under Defeat for dreamcast. As described, and as I expected, the manual and DVD case insert have water damage - as manifested in the form of lots of wrinkles on the paper, the paper feels more dry and crackly than normal, and discoloration where ink on the paper when the paper was water logged.

I expect I can't do anything about the discoloration (which is luckily fairly minor) - but what about the wrinkled aspect or the dry and crackly aspect? The paper has obviously long dried from the flooding that affected it (I think it was a victim of hurricane Sandy). I'm going to try pressing the wrinkled paper between flat heavy objects and see if that will minimize the wrinkles - but since its already dry, can I really expect this to do much of anything? Would it be better (or potentially worse) if I try pressing the manual and insert when they are in a humid environment? Or if I treat them with a little bit of moisture?

Any thoughts?

 

I've heard of people having luck getting the materials damp (steam comes to mind) and then flattening them under something hard with a lot of weight (I guess two sheets of glass would be ideal, but not necessary) until they are dry (let them set a couple days at least).

Remember, though, to cover the surfaces with a sheet of something like wax paper, so the paper/ink does not de-laminate/stick to the flat weighted surfaces.

Perhaps this technique could also work with the manual if you were to stick [again, a sheet of wax paper?] in-between each page (so they don't stick to each other).

I bet there's a write-up on this somewhere on the 'net with similar advice but better details. I wish you luck and hope you can let us know how your refurb process goes!

 

I just tried flattening the dry paper for 24 hours sandwiched between flat objects with weight on the top. Overall it made things flatter, but didn't do much to the subtle wrinkling. I might try steaming the paper a bit, and then flattening it again. I'll report back if that does much of anything.

If only I had a color printer, I could probably just print out the DVD insert graphics and it would look pretty good.