Why does vinegar work so well for cleaning LP's?

I miss the good old days when people talked poached eggs in this thread...

 

Sounds like a man with experience on this

 

Come on comedians, back on topic.

 

I mixed up another batch, this time 500ml distilled water, 500ml vinegar, 1 ml (1/4 teaspoon) photography surfactant. Got very good results with this.

 

Alright! Good stuff.

 

It's your vinyl, I guess you can do as you please. My comment was not meant to try to get in the way of that. Hell, at one time, before the popular use of the Internet for "knowledge", a home remedy of lemon fresh Pledge furniture polish was becoming popular as a vinyl record rejuvenator... It made records extremely shiny, like new, they smelt nice, and temporarily it made them play quieter. I never tried it myself, so I can't tell you how it all turned out, nor what happened to the stylus that people were running them on. So, not with my low output moving coil cartridge either, and best of luck!

 

I have no reason to believe that a weak vinegar solution poses any danger to the record. However, until someone establishes that there are no cumulative and long-term problems with using vinegar, I think exercising some caution is in order. I recall that some people, including audio magazines, touted the use of Armor All (car plastic interior protection/polishing spray) on CDs. It turned out that in the long term, that product damaged the CD; years after application, the CD would cloud up and would become unplayable. I would not want the same to happen to my records.

 

Not I

 

I have been told vinegar is not too good for you though if you have, or fear to have, a heart condition. Maybe that's a myth, but just thought I'd mention it.

 

It should only be Apple Cider Vinegar with the «mère du vinaigre ». But lemon juice in tepid water is good too, which seems even more natural to me.

 

I think there's some key differences between cleaning a record with a vinegar solution and spraying armor-all on CDs or lemon pledge on an LP. Much like the differences between driving your car to the store and driving it backwards off a cliff.

 

Two of those are adding, while the other is attempting to remove
With the couple of lp's I've used vinegar on I see no negative affects, up next my mono parsley, I did a transfer of this a few months ago, will see if any marked improvement...

 

Interesting thread. I may try it out. The fact that white vinegar is sold in plastic bottles makes me think it'll be ok.

 

In the case of the vinegar, you're also rinsing the cliff off of the car vs. leaving it on with Armor-All.

 

I don't know....think I'll stay well clear. I'm finding it hard to rinse records properly after using vinegar. I'm finding streaks, residue, stains, no matter what I do all of which seem to impart extra crackle, with the result that I have to clean all over again anyway. Not working for me.

 

Are you using it with a vacuum powered RCM? With my 50/50 solution, I don't detect any traces of vinegar after the vacuuming.

(Feel free to picture me in my garage sniffing records, I'm sure it looks just as hilarious as it sounds)

 

Here's some interesting reading on using vinegar from a thread over at vinylengine.com.

http://www.vinylengine.com/turntable_forum/viewtopic.php?t=33024

 

No, I don't have such a thing. Just a Spin Clean.

 

That jogged my memory as I've definitely read that thread, probably a while back when I first wondered about using vinegar to clean records. Its easy to remember due to the two chemists making hilariously unnecessary personal attacks on each other. Oh, audio forums.

 

Ah, I see. Probably best to only use the spin clean juice in a spin clean.

 

So I bought a bottle of Heinz distilled white vinegar. The label says "Diluted with water to a uniform pickling and table strength of 5% (50 grains) acidity".

Should I dilute this further?

I went ahead and tried this on a record from my donate pile and had pretty impressive results . The LP is a pretty filthy copy of Blood Sweat and Tears' Greatest Hits that was picked out of the $1 sidewalk bin at Sonic Boom a few years ago. I applied the 5% vinegar straight, and scrubbed as normal with a brush on the VPI. Vacuumed. Applied ultra pure water, vacuumed, super cleaner formula, vacuum, more ultra pure water, vacuumed, and then put it through a 5 minute clean / 4 minute dry pass in the Klaudio.

The extra pass with the vinegar did what multiple passes with a spin clean, a VPI 16.5, and a Klaudio ultrasonic could not - bigger soundstage, dramatically lower surface noise, no rice crispies...I'm cautiously impressed. Need to try a few more "lost causes" and see what happens. I might try a before-and-after needle drop on another record and post.

 

Yes that's the regular strength In other words "full strength" vinegar. I'd dilute it but if it worked and you are rinsing quickly I don't think it will do any harm.

 

With the method I'm trying, the vinegar is only on for as long as it takes me to apply it and scrub with the brush as it's rotating on the VPI. I apply multiple passes of ultra pure water and cleaner and then a dip in the ultrasonic after that...hasn't dissolved anything so far.

Waiting for the latest test to get out of the Klaudio so I can do an 'after' test needle drop...

 

The downside? It smells. And I'll have to empty the VPI more often whenever I resort to 'the vinegar method'.

 

Meh. The last record I tried - a copy of Michael Penn's "March" LP - didn't benefit much. I guess I've gotten all the cruft off it that I'm gonna, and the rest is just physical damage. Bummer...I'm having a hard time finding another copy of this on vinyl...