My most futile cleanup project ever (graphic content)

[MiamiSlice | 3,195]

(You’ve been warned)

This came in my most recent Nintendo Power haul which was very mixed in terms of condition. This was the only item that was really dirty and water damaged, there were others with rips and such which I can live with but this needed cleaning before I could keep it. 

The mess was on the first page. This is the worst thing I've ever seen. At first I thought maybe someone was chewing almonds, vomited on the page and closed it and left it that way. But then I thought maybe a flying bug got murdered and its guts were just left there. That's the most plausible explanation. 

So... I went at it best I could with q-tips and Bestine. Surprisingly the page and inside cover held up. I didn't end up wearing down the fibers or removing the ink. After using Bestine to remove the bulk of it, I was actually able to scratch off the remainder of whatever was caked on with my nail (having it moistened with Bestine before removing it helped prevent the page being torn off with it). The water damage is still there and I can't do anything about that without taking the whole book apart and soaking it (which I just don't want to do). 

The only part that is still an issue and I think I need to fix is the staples are past their limit. I need to remove them, but I don't have the kind of stapler for re-stapling this. Maybe I could find one at like a Fedex Print store??? No idea. 

If I really wanted to get crazy about this here's what I would do: remove the staples, separate the pages, soak each one in a bath, lay them flat to dry out completely, put some restoration paper strips along the spines of each one to restore them, and finally re-staple the whole thing. But that would take too long! At least how I have it now is clean enough I don't feel grossed out to have it in my house. And surprisingly there are no tears or missing pages! The only other "damage" aside from general wear is some of the corners were folded, which I'm already fixing. 

Edited August 26, 2020 by MiamiSlice

[phart010 | 1,804]

1 hour ago, MiamiSlice said:

 

WHOA am I seeing this correctly?

[Tanooki | 5,193]

Hey can we collaborate on this thread?

I picked up this sweet lot of NP mags (actually 3) lately, but the recent one cost me ($160) for a lot of items including some fun club, extra insert mags, and even most of the 88-89 period magazines too.  Many are in great shape, a few I did some spine curl repair with the old classic glue stick.  While #2 was fantastic, #1 was a detached cover dumpster fire.

I had for #1 settled on compressing pages to get the curl off, then went with the loctite super glue gel in the finest of strips and lined up the mess and did that, then the ripped out space, used scissors on some clear packing tape, wedged it inside and adhered it from the interior.  I'm wanting to do MORE here if possible, I mean the cover was FUBAR and I knew it, didn't care when my average was around $6 a magazine I think.

Also my concern are those year of issues they stupidly went cheap on staples, many of those have some form of ripping along the staple posts, love to get some input off you, others, the wisest way to hit that with the least damage possible so it doesn't degrade.

 

I was(will) do a 'finds' post on this but I wanted to jump the gun on this since MegaTank gave me a discord link back to this so the timing was perfect.

[MiamiSlice | 3,195]

3 hours ago, phart010 said:

WHOA am I seeing this correctly?

Don’t tell Mario

[fcgamer | 5,058]

@MiamiSlice Definitely was a dead roach between those pages. Vomited almond chunks was definitely wishful thinking

[MiamiSlice | 3,195]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

@MiamiSlice Definitely was a dead roach between those pages. Vomited almond chunks was definitely wishful thinking

Oh

Unrelated, does anyone want to buy a SMB2 guide? It’s um... fair condition.

[MiamiSlice | 3,195]

4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Hey can we collaborate on this thread?I

I don’t know much about restoring paper. When I think about the time it takes I just give up. But there’s a guy on Reddit that has really gone all-out learning about what serious archivists do to restore like maps and manuscripts from olden times and he’s the only reason I even have an inkling of how this is done. If you want to go down this rabbit hole, see this:

And this:

To me this is pure alchemy. I know exactly how it works but I still can’t believe the end result.

[MiamiSlice | 3,195]

Also to me a well placed heavy clear tape along the spine is a-ok but I know that’s a lame way to do it 

[Tanooki | 5,193]

15 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

Also to me a well placed heavy clear tape along the spine is a-ok but I know that’s a lame way to do it 

Well what he did is impressive, but it's way into a rabbit hole far deeper than these magazines are.  I wonder if he used a clear strip o tape and cut it perfectly when it came to that map on the finished side as he really just explained the book and removing old tape and stains.

Yes I was considering either doing a total strip or at least for the staple issues, a 'clamp' of a strip just over and beyond the staple area a bit to minimize the use of tape.  I know if I had my way and could do it 100% safely I'd pop all the pages out and do the tape internally then re-do it, but that's just overkill.  I could add a new staple that would soften the blow, but don't have one deep enough to get across to that point either.

[GPX | 1,435]

15 hours ago, fcgamer said:

@MiamiSlice Definitely was a dead roach between those pages. Vomited almond chunks was definitely wishful thinking

What about the possibility of roach vomit?

...

@MiamiSlice just be sure you use hand hygiene after touching the mag!

[phart010 | 1,804]

22 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

Don’t tell Mario

Well you did warn there would be graphic content