After record cleaning, does your stylus pull out gunk?

I'll give that a try. I think the concept was the antibacterial soap was a substitute for the chemicals used by some cleaners to kill mold or fungus, but at that tiny concentration, I doubt the antibacterial properties really work anyway.

 

Do you have an ultrasonic bath available or have you ever used one?

I've been wondering about those for a number of years now. Somewhere between 3-5 years ago I discovered them...by accident. A record store owner was using one he'd improvised himself from a hospital surplus unit. He said it was by far the best cleaning regimen he'd ever come across. I imagine as a record dealer/collector his age (I'd guess he's in his 50s or 60s) he has run across a few.

Ultrasonic record cleaners, specifically set up for records, are very expensive--at least the one I saw at the Audio Union store in Shinjuku was. I think it was more than US$1,000.

If I knew more, I might pull the trigger on one someday. The theory intrigues me...that the baked on/ground in particles can be loosened and washed/vacuumed out after being shaken out by ultrasonic force.

It could be worth it for someone with lots of valuable, irreplaceable vinyl.

Dale

 

I always vacuum...and play once with an older Shure cart, lifting 2-3 times and cleaning stylus.

 

Never, and I hand clean mine (no vacuum). I use a paint pad (sponge covered w/ a fine bristled pad on a styrofoam handle) a little dish soap w/ rubbing alcohol and scrub lightly back and forth in the direction of the grooves, rinse well with warm water and then do the other side. Pat dry with soft paper towels. Play. No residue on the stylus at all. And I clean my stylus BEFORE playing a cleaned record, also.

 

For the dirty records I pick up used I use a steamer from walgreens and a vpi brush. Wipe it off and run it through a nitty gritty rcm. No noticable stylus biuld up after the process.

 

I never had this problem but I never use soap or detergent either.

 

The chemical in that stuff--triclosan--isn't very strong, and in the concentration you use it's essentially worthless--the alcohol will kill more stuff than the SoftSoap.

John k.

 

Yes, yes, and yes. I didn't say "perfectly clean," there's always something left behind. But how often are the amounts significant?

Any cleaning process that (as the OP said) leaves behind enough gunk to gum up the stylus and cause distortion, and which needs multiple playings to get the stuff out of the grooves, is not a good cleaning regimen.

John K.

 

Last weekend I tried a 50% dilution of Simple Green cleaner/distilled water on two old records that were quite dirty. I followed this with my usual homemade cleaning solution (40% alcohol 60% distilled water plus a few drops of jet dry), a good rinse using filtered water, then a vacuum followed by microfibre cloth wiping and air drying. One of the records, an early Canadian pressing of the 1st CSN album, was nearly as quiet as a sealed audiophile pressing after I was done! The other was quite a very clean but still noisy due to a lot of scratches and groove damage. I'm waiting on a bottle of Crystal Simple Green I ordered through a supplier at work. It's the odorless industrial version, so it'll be interesting to see what kind of results I get from that.

To get back to the thread topic, as others have said, a good cleaning should result in no build-up on the stylus. I've had that happen only once really on a really dirty thrift store LP I cleaned but didn't rinse enough (it was before I started vacuuming after rinse).

 

That bad, huh?

I use a VPI HW 16.5 RCM and never see any junk left behind on my stylus. If your records are reasonably clean, you shouldn't see any residue. I suspect part of the problem is the relatively large amount of softsoap being used, which I imagine is leaving a substantial residue.

 

Hehe, sounds like you've been burned by some bad pressings!

No, I meant that good. Seriously, I was surprised at how black the background turned out after the Simple Green cleaning (other than a really obvious 60Hz hum through the entire album. I wonder if it was sloppy mastering or on the original album).

 

Be careful. When I worked at a bike shop we switched from turpentine to Simple Green in our parts cleaner. Less then a week later all the paint inside was gone. 20 years of gasoline/turpentine and nothing, a few days of SG and it was bare. Rinse really well and I'd hope it would be fine.

Back to the OP, if you're getting gunk on the needle you're not getting the cleaning quite right...at least to my way of thinking. You should be removing the gunk with whatever formula/ritual you use, not letting the needle do it.

 

Thanks for the tip. Yes, I rinsed the Simple Green off completely, then washed and brushed using my regular cleaning solution, then rinsed again, then vacuumed, then dried. I imagine just about anything soaking in that stuff for a week would disappear! Reminds me of the time a colleague accidentally dropped a penny in the cafeteria's pasta sauce where I used to work. When he got to his seat he fished it out and it had to be the shiniest, cleanest penny in existence! There's also the rusty nail in a bottle of Coke overnight story.

 

Neither have I.

 

I have vacuumed wet wash records and had stylus buildup afterward.

The guys at Circle Sky Records get it too, w/ their Nitty Gritty (we've discussed it).
The cleaning sometimes loosens stuff that only a needle, not a vacuum, will remove. Simple as that.

 

I clean, vacuum, rinse, vacuum (sometimes repeat) with a VPI 16.5 and sometimes (not often) encounter this. I then give it another clean after it play. It pleases me to see that gunk come out with the needle.

 

I don't think styli do any 'lifting', that sounds like the stuff Roy Gandy used to spout about how you don't need to clean your records as the needle does that for you. Preposterous. If anything the stylus with its pressure/heat/movement will drive the crud back into the groove. The stuff that mounts up on the tip is overflow. I wouldn't want any crud being plastered back onto those groove walls, and I don't think it does the stylus any good at all.

 

Maybe the cleaning loosens the dirt and if you play it soon afterward, it prys it up? Today I did the most throughal washing ever of an older record (left out the softsoap on the second washing) and I still got gunk on my needle.

 

you will always get residue left if you don't vaccum clean them properly. I've cleaned over 300 with a Keith Monks machine and have never had any stylus gunk build up.

 

Perhaps those who still get build-up are not cleaning/scrubbing hard enough to begin with? Or not using enough liquid to flush everything out?

New tip from Germany: CW 1:100 - good for 50 liters.

 

I believe it is there because it is not being vacuumed out.

 

Never have used a vacuum, never have had any "gunk". You folks must get some really dirty records. Gunk?

 

+1

 

if you buys used then it happens, especially if you collect original Beatles Lps like I do, they were all treated terribly.

or maybe your stylus isn't digging deep enough?

 

Its probably because I don't buy vinyl that looks dirty. My cart. (AT440mla) digs plenty deep.