Steam and/or soak them. Pick up some PVC pipe (thick walled) and end caps. You can make the pipe into a trough and soak the strips for an hour or more or fit it with tube/teapot and steam for about 20 minutes. I found an old whistling teapot. I pulled the whistle off an hose-clamped a tube to it... other end went into a hole in the PVC pipe. Be sure to leave some sort of opening in the PVC pipe for the pressure to escape.