The Wood Glue vinyl cleaning method

Sail- and thank you as well, which I neglected to do when you posted your reply earlier.
best,

 

I'd imagine that glue would be best for removing things that water and surfactants can't. Therefore, it seems sensible to start with wet cleaning, and move on to glue as a second step.

 

What is the best way of dealing with dried wood glue which has not been completely peeled off?

Today I received a shipment of used records one of which had small pieces of scotch tape looking films on it. I tried to peel them off with fingernails but they were very stubborn and brittle. I sprayed some MicroCare Premiér! which didn't do much. I then sprayed Vinyl-Zyme Gold on the record and the patches dissolved into white liquid. It'd got wood glue on it!

I am glad that I did not put the record in my brand new Audio Desk Systeme Vinyl Cleaner replacement unit. Otherwise, I would have had diluted wood glue on the cleaning barrels and in the tank!

I rubbed off the wood glue residues with q-tips and absorbed the white wood glue "solution" with paper towel. It then went through Audio Intelligent Vinyl Solutions 3-step cleaning on my VPI HW-16.5 which I never thought I would ever use again.

I was thinking about trashing it before going through all the troubles. Don't tell me that I should have tried wood glue first.

 

I don't know if I'd necessarily say that you should have tried it *first,* as I don't know how well those other methods would have worked, or how much more quickly, since wood glue takes a lot of time.

But I will say that old shards of wood glue will merge completely when you glue the record again, at least in my experience.

 

I tried it once on a new record that I later determined suffered from non-fill syndrome. Needless to say, it didn't have any effect.

 

I seldom if ever have residual wood glue fragments or patches left on records as (not to brag) I am getting close to perfecting the technique of wood glue record cleaning. On my very first try, I did have some residue as I was impatient and didn't wait for the glue to completely dry. A second application of wood glue easily cleaned up the first botched attempt. Use Titebond II wood glue!

 

I have a copy of Swans' The Seer on vinyl, at the very end of the last side there's actually a small bit of paper embedded into the vinyl [I should've exchanged it when I bought it in 2012 but my old elliptical stylus got through it okay, and long story short I have serious social anxiety]. I've been using the wood glue method to see what I can get off, hopefully at least enough to safely play without damaging a stylus. I'm on my fifth application of glue, however each time I do it I pull off another small layer of the paper. I'm curious if anyone else has tried it with embedded paper to any success?

 

I wouldn't take it any farther. If you remove all the paper, you're just going to leave a pit in the vinyl that's not going to do your stylus any favors.

Young God has real issues with vinyl pressings. My copy of To Be Kind is pressed way off center, and one side has a scratch that you can actually feel on the vinyl surface.

 

Do even more damage than hitting a small piece of paper, you think?
I still have the rip I did from the old stylus (an elliptical stylus, compared to my Fine Line now), and it sounds more like there's a small scratch right at the end, and plays through. I think I'll pull out my old 2M bronze stylus I replaced a few months back[which I kept because I couldn't bring myself to throw something so expensive away], give it a quick switch and see how it plays. Might be a slight pain, but I could switch it out JUST for this one album.

 

I wouldn't. I agree with MadMelMon. The paper was probably pressed into the vinyl. Pulling it out with glue may only leave a big pot hole.

 

Yeah, I probably should've asked earlier. I tried to cancel and wash off the glue, but I think I did actually get it fully out, but... that's a small yet noticeable gap.

At the very least, I don't feel too bad about it, because I wasn't going to put my stylus through that one way or another. But hey, it worked... technically.

 

Removing the paper pressed into the vinyl may render the record unplayable.

You don't need wood glue to remove the paper. Q-tips and any cleaning fluid or even distilled water will do the job (of digging a pot hole).

 

I hadn't have any luck with removing the piece with any liquid.

Though to be fair, my thought process was that The Dead Weather (One of Jack White's projects) had an album that had actual grooves in the label, pressed THROUGH the paper. Also since it was a small piece of paper, and I have an old rip that it just sounds like a small scratch, I assumed the grooves were formed, but the paper was around it, so if I could rip out the paper piece by piece I'd end up with the grooves intact. I've never run into another album with paper pressed in it.

 

Having been gluing records for years to clean them, the single biggest variable in the quality of the clean is the actual wood glue itself. What you dont want is a glue that dries brittle as the glue should be removed in one whole "carcass". Secondly, you want to have zero residue. Finally, you want to be sure that the product has consistency, not varying between bottles. I find that Evostick is my preferred choice. It dries relatively quickly too. It certainly beats my friends £2000 Keith Monks record cleaning machine in terms of improving the noise floor. I simply apply the glue using a credit card or similar. Its not difficult to get good control so that the record is covered. What i also like about this glue is it doesnt leave air bubbles, which is something you really need to avoid with this method.

 

Has anyone tried Silly Putty? Great for pulling photos and comic prints off a newspaper.

 

Yes, and they regretted it. Leaves an oily film.

 

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But then my SpinClean might get all of that off.....or not! A man will try anything once until he gets burned. "Hold my beer and watch this!" ;>0

 

This method is always hit or miss, but when it hits, it can work wonders. Sometimes it takes two or three gluings to get a record totally quiet, but it can and does work. I've seen and heard it dozens of times. Titebond II is magic stuff!

 

I'm going to try this today. Just bought some tight bond II. Even found a plastic bondo spreader thing. I've hesitated trying this for years because I'm just so messy. I have a bad feeling I will have glue everywhere. Like when I was a kid and tried building Robotech models kits.

 

I have not, however I had a fleetwood mac record that I picked up that had been waterlogged, and a huge chunk (many inches) of jacket had gotten wet and fused into the record and ripped apart (stayed stuck in there) when I pulled the record out of the jacket. I soaked it for a little bit in my standard tergitol (library of congress) cleaning solution, and it lifted right off. The record turned out to be in otherwise pristine condition, and I found a replacement sleeve for it. Long story short: try soaking the record in a liquid solution, will probably be much more effective at lifting the paper out than wood glue.

 

Cleaning records is always a hit and miss affair. There are times I have to clean records multiple times when using cleaning solutions

 

Agreed. I usually combine wood glue with a wet vacuum cleaning.

 

Me too. Even ultrasonic cleaning isn't the be all that ends all

 

True. I've had several dozen albums ultrasonic cleaned, and it doesn't always eliminate surface noise.

 

I have been enjoying very good, and occasionally OMG success using Franklin Titebond II wood glue to clean my records. As with any of the various cleaning methods I have tried, some records respond better than others.
My question to experienced wood glue converts out there: I realize damaged records will never be magically restored, but I am curious if some records with really tough deep groove grunge would benefit from repeat glue application. Do you ever try a second and maybe even third application of glue to stubborn records that aren't as quiet as you would like after the first wood glue application? If so, what is your opinion on the effectiveness of repeat applications?