Cleaning makes my records sound worse and skip!

Yes, we'd like to know

What's the right way?

 

Add certain household cleaners to the list of "makes it shiny" but rubs dirt into the grooves like 60 grit sandpaper. A shop near me does this. I don't like buying stuff there.

Not all stores do this, but many unscrupulous ones do. Plenty of folks willing to do iffy things to cash in on the current vinyl trend.

 

The supplies shown are absolutely all anyone needs to get their records very clean, completely cleaned. I will post the cleaning process when I take a few more pics, where you can see what I do and how I do it. In the mean time, here are the items needed.
1. Record label cover to seal label off from water
2. A used up Windex bottle, why, because those bottles have a very fine spray adjustment which project a "powerful" misty water blast which is necessary in the final rinsing process (Distilled Water Is Used For This Final Rinse)
3. (1) Gallon .88 cent plastic bottle of distilled water
4. A very nice, soft bristle paint brush, a cheap one WILL NOT DUE, the bristles must be dense and must be soft, very important.
5. Small bottle of Dawn dish washing liquid, the (standard Dawn)
6. Some super absorbent large bath towels and smaller soft hand towels (Absorbent is key, you do not want towels that smear water around)

I will post pics of the steps in cleaning your records, where you can see not only the steps, but why they are important in a great clean finished product.

 

This is a good demonstration of the effect of timing in comedy. If it was on page 3, it wouldn't be funny at all. But the first response....

 

squeakycleanvinyl.com

My spin clean is now off collecting dust, and honestly was a pita.

 

Ok Dan, here it is, a play by play on how to make your records sparkle. The problem with "most" of these cheap record cleaning machines is they do not give the record a vigorous cleaning, a few little weak bristles rub across the record 4 or 5 times, hey, if a record is dirty, that will not do the job, period! I have showed this to people that owned a Spin Clean, and they talked about giving their Spin Clean away. The trick in cleaning a record is getting the "crud" down deep in those groves wet and in suspension "and keep them that way" until the water rinses it away. So, here is how you GET UR DONE!

1. Place a soft towel in your kitchen sink and get it soaking wet, you can even have a bit of water standing in the towel, no problem.
2. Place and secure the label protector on your record and sit it in the sink on the soaking wet towel, which will protect the record from damage from you stainless steel sink.



3. Next step is to take your nice expensive paint brush and place two or three drops, more if you like, of Dawn soap on the brush bristles. Then "have at it" go with the groves in one direction, two directions, just rub the hell out of your record, back and forth, turning the brush sideways to really get down DEEP in those grooves, suds it up, records are tough, the label is protected, don't treat it like a new baby, get in there and scrub, scrub, scrub, bend those bristles, get in there and soap that record up good.

Now, before you turn the record over, rinse that first side good with very warm water, turn that tap up and put some good rinsing pressure on it. Now, turn the record over and place it on that soaking wet towel in your sink, and the reason you want that towel soaking wet, you want to KEEP everything in suspension on the side against the towel! One you have cleaned the second side of the record, rinse that side very well with the tap and turn the record over and rinse that first side again. Now you are ready for the final process.







4. Now that you have your record well washed off on each side, the final step is to rinse again, except this time with pure distilled water UNDER PRESSURE ! This is why I suggested the old Windex bottle that has the very powerful "fine mist" hard spray. Now you are trying to make sure all the chemical loaded tap water is completely washed off both sides of your record by using the distilled water sprayed with force directly into all the grooves in your record. Hold the record vertically and spray, spray, spray, every inch of both sides. After this treatment, your record is going to be absolutely clean from normal dust and crud that builds up on records, it is clean now with beads of distilled water sitting on it! Shake what will come off, off
and move to step 5.




5. Now that your record is totally and completely clean, let's get it dry "quickly" where there is no chance of drying water spots, which is not much of a problem with a distilled water rinse, however, we are looking for perfection here, so here is your final drying step.

Lay the record on a very wide soft fluffy clean dry absorbent towel and take a smaller very absorbent clean dray towel and double it up and carefully and easily go with the record groves and soak the water up and as you do this, the record will be dry almost immediately, it's magic! Turn the record over and do the same thing to side two and when all is said and done, your record is totally clean and dry and ready to play.



Good job, pat yourself on the back, job well done!

 

Now, you have a clean record!

 

I just posted for you to view, post #56

 

Answered in post #56

 

Bought coloured vinyl and used Winyl. Why not make your own solution with isopropyl alcohol and purified water? Some of these proprietary cleaners leave a deposit. Just flushing with purified water may do the trick. Air dry and do not rub with a cloth. My guess is that Winyl gel leaves particles stuck in the grooves. You may need an RCM to get this record clean but this stuff could be difficult to impossible to remove if it doesn't peel off completely.

 

That technique will destroy or damage many types of record label. Putting more crap back in the grooves with that towel.

 

2 suction pads like these :

They cost $5 and come in just the right size. I am not a fan of the sink cleaning method. In my experience it doesn't get the crud out of the groove. It softens it and afterwards it collects on your stylus. Vacuum cleaning is what needed imo/ime.

 

Zac,

Fistly I would discard that fluid and the cloths.

An affordable vacuum record cleaning system is the SqueakyClean. https://squeakycleanvinyl.com/products/squeakycleanvinyl-mk-iii Much better that the SpinClean and the like.

Your Groovewasher looks like a clone of the Discwasher. It's designed to lift dust prior to playing a record, not as a comprehensive washing solution.
Here's a video of how to use it. If you don't have the original fluid I would use distilled water.

 

Wrong, I have a picture of the grooves right there in the post, do you see bits of towel in the grooves, no you don't. You're mistaking my method with pouring glue all over your records. Nothing from these towels sheds, I've been doing this for 20 years with zero mishaps, and no fuzz or debris left in the grooves from the towel. When immediately played, there is no lint or crud on the stylus, after playing the entire record, both sides. What you are saying will happen is simply not happening, period.

Not sure how the record label will be destroyed, it's sealed completely from water, nothing can get to it. The rubber seals don't even touch the label at all, again, wrong. I'm just not sure why people argue with success, the picture of the record grooves are right there in the post, they are totally and completely clean, as new!

If someone has tar in their record grooves this method would not work, but normal crud that simply accumulates on records is bombarded with a flood of overly warm water which is softened by the cleaning agent (Dawn), and gets all crud out, period. The two rinses takes everything out of the grooves, and the towels do NOT shed anything back into the grooves, the record is totally clean.

So many record cleaning machines are simply not vigorous enough to break down the accumulated crud in record grooves, it just does not come out. With this method, you are literally brushing those grooves with a darn paint brush and a liquid soap that will soften and REMOVE that crud from the grooves. You are then blasting it out with water pressure, then blasting again with distilled water, there is simply nothing left in the grooves unless you have tar or paint in there, and that is unlikely, come on folks! Look at the picture of the cleaned record, and as posted in a previous post, the crud that was on this record was one year old dried sewage water where the record was next to a pipe that leaked, and all of that was totally and completely cleaned after sitting on the record surface for over one year!

 

Yes, I have been happy with L’Art do Son as a one-step, no-rinse cleaner. Spray/spread it on, wait a minute or two, vacuum off. Rarely have I found I need to do another pass, and rinsing proved to be a waste of time as the vacuum seemingly gets it all off. It’s very quick, easy, and effective to clean a record this way, and not even very expensive depending on how nice a RCM one wants to use.

 

The picture of the grooves does not show whether it is clean of (tiny) crud deep in the grooves, magnification is simply too low.

However, I am going to try your method with the paintbrush and so on. I have some records which I don’t seem to be able to get completely clean with other methods. Thanks for sharing!

 

GrooveWasher actually is designed as a spray-and-wipe cleaning system (it was my first stop on the journey to figuring out what the hell I’m doing), but I agree spray-and-wipe is not the way to go.

This type of vacuum system (I have a Vinyl Bug, essentially the same thing) is the way to go for anyone who doesn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a RCM. Had I skipped paying for the GrooveWasher and the Spin Clean, I could have just had my vacuum system in the first place. I know Spin Clean is a popular suggestion, but it doesn’t have to be that much more expensive to just go straight to vacuum cleaning. I wish I had known these existed before I spent my money on those inferior systems.

 

Been there, done that, not great results compared to a decent manual RCM and AI #15. The difference is night and day. DIY/Sink was a waste of time for me and made a mess. In the end I had to reclean all those records anyway, and the ones that had filth rather than simply groove damage sound better and quieter now.

 

Oh, yes, add one of those screw-on label protectors to the list of expenses I wish I had skipped. I could have more than paid for my vacuum system by a pretty good margin...

 

Unless these were taken at very high magnification with an electron microscope, you honestly have no idea what is lodged deep down in the grooves. Your method mainly cleans the surface and makes the record look shiny.

 

That's how I do mine, without the final distilled rinse. Sink rinse (we've got great municipal water) is good enough for me.

 

When I used discwasher and D3 and D4 fluid, my records got worse over time, just like you are seeing. When I switched to the cleaning in the sink with Dawn, water, paint brush and a bit of alcohol, my records never sounded better. For every play to remove any surface dust I use dry carbon brushes. My Discwasher I keep for nostalgia, but I'll never wet wipe albums again.

 

I do a Spin Clean presoak and cleaning followed by a vacuum and second cleaning with my Record Doctor V. I found this dual cleaning work better than either by themselves. Takes about 5 minutes a record once you get into a rhythm and the vinyl is very quiet after cleaning.

I could see doing a sink cleaning to get most of the grunge and loosen up what is in the grooves followed by a vacuum system liquid removal and second cleaning as a better option than just towel or air drying. I found you can't beat vacuuming the dirty solution off of the vinyl to get rid of all the pops and clicks on good condition vinyl that just needs a cleaning.

 

Let me mention one thing to you. If a record has something in the grooves that cannot be loosened and put in suspension by a mild dish washing liquid (Dawn), something may be required to add to the mix to break down a tough substance that has hardened in the grooves. I do not know what that might be, as I have never sprayed anything on any of my records that requires more aggressive cleaning. I would suggest having the water hotter than normal to help break down whatever has been sprayed or put into the grooves of your records. Using something that might be considered questionable might be required to save a record, I have just never had to go there.

Let us know how the cleaning goes.

 

There are a million and one ways to clean LPs. Everybody has their favorite method, fluid, combination of steps, etc. I've been able to reduce this down to a few simple truths:
1. Do no harm- a badly 'cleaned' record is worse than no cleaning. The OP's post that started this thread is an example.
2. The goal- leaving aside ultrasonic for the moment, is to get the surfactant/ detergent to do it's thing and then get it off the record surface. Residue of cleaning fluid, mixed with contaminants that have not been removed, is a violation of the first principle. Without taking shots at anybody's preferred home brew, I'd ask not just how well it cleans, but how easy it is to remove once the cleaning step is done.
3. To achieve #2, I prefer a rinse step with as pure a water as you can find. For most people in the States, distilled water is fine. Tap water typically has minerals in it- good to drink but bad for records.
For the machinery and consumables, I'm agnostic:
Fluids- I rely on commercial brands and have used quite a few. Yes, they are more expensive than home brew but I'm not a chemist and the few dollars saved with home brew (which I did use back in the day) isn't as important to me as the results. I've been alternating between Hannl's concentrate on my Monks (which I mix with Reagent Grade 1 water) but which as far as I know is no longer available and AIVS # 15 for deeper cleaning.
Machinery- the vacuum machines typically don't do the cleaning- you do. They are mainly to help remove the contaminants in the vacuum step. Though I have been using a Monks Omni for a while, I can get good results using a basic VPI (my 16.5 started life as a 16 and was more than 30 years old when i gave it to a friend, still worked fine).
Brushes, Applicators, Etc.- I use different applicators for different types of fluid application. The Monks brushes (which are expensive) are great for laying down fluid that doesn't require agitation. For AIVS #15, I prefer a plush pad type brush- similar to the ones by MoFi/Disc Doctor. ( I use the convex ones from Lloyd Walker- they are easier to handle and have a unidirectional pile- unfortunately you can't buy these as far as I know without the full Walker Prelude kit. I had been using Walker's 4 step process at one point-- too much work and I get the same results with AIVS #15 and reagent water-- but I continue to use his applicators).

Keeping everything involved in the cleaning process 'clean'-
Separate applicators for fluid and rinse steps are important in my estimation, as are vacuum wands on a machine like the VPI- you can swap them out in two seconds if you buy a second support pillar and wand. This minimizes cross contamination.
During and after a cleaning session, i'm cleaning the brushes or applicators; since I no longer use a VPI, I don't have to worry about keeping the velvet lips of the wand clean, but when I used the VPI, same drill.
Good lighting-- helps you see what you are doing.
Pre-clean- scrubbing or agitating a record that has any sort of surface deposits is a potential problem- you don't want to grind that stuff into the record in the process of cleaning it. I'll use a Giotto's Rocket 'air blaster' to remove any loose surface contaminants before cleaning; if the record requires it, or is valuable, I'll often pre-clean using a mild fluid first, and vacuum, before doing any step involving agitation, just to minimize the risk of grinding any detritus into the grooves in the process of cleaning.
No Magic Bullet- Including Ultrasonic
There's no magic bullet. I first drilled down on this when some old, valuable records didn't get fully clean, based on playback quality, using an ultrasonic machine (the earlier version of the Audio Desk).
Ultrasonic is great, but I don't rely on it exclusively. I'm a big believer in multi-method cleaning for older records. And, I vary my methods and sequence depending on need.
The ultimate test, to me, is playback quality. Some records are inherently noisy or damaged and cleaning won't 'restore' them.