Cleaning Vinyl With Distilled Water

Never would have thought about.

I would not think that it would, being that WD-40 is a lubricant, designed to remain on what ever you put it on.

Where lighter fluid will evaporate.

My friend recommended lighter fluid, so that is what I used. I did keep a can of WD-40 on hand, I just did not use it to remove sticky labels.

 

It is not actually a lubricant but rather a solvent which is why it is great for cleaning stuff. I made the mistake of putting it on squeaky door hinges and it resulted in nasty black residue which stained the carpet underneath the hinges.

I don't recommend using it as a lubricant.

https://lifehacker.com/5891936/when-should-i-not-use-wd-40

 

That's funny, since I use it to lubricate squeaky door hinges.

Curious, I want to the WD-40 web site and found a video on the uses around the home page.

It shows it for both removing sticker's and lubricating door hinges.

 

Mostly solvent, and a little oil mixed in.

 

Careful, someone might take you seriously

 

VPI 17
Three phase cleaning regime. Audio intelligent solutions.
1. Enzyme. One brush - I use cotton cosmetic pads clamped to a brush with all but the centre bristles removed.
2. Super cleaner. Second Brush with cosmetic pad.
3. Triple distilled water. third brush with cosmetic pad.

There is a good article on record cleaning on Fremers site. This should be read by anyone serious about cleaning vinyl.

 

To do it properly, you need a vacuum machine.
Every solvent, cleaning solution, whatever leaves something of itself behind. You need that triple distilled water rinse at the end. The water sinks into the record grooves too, you can see it going in.

Ultrasonic / Cavitation machines. I have nothing to back this up, but I think:
1. the ultrasonic is rough on vinyl, some of that vinyl residue ending up on the bottom of hte tub is musical subtlety getting blasted off and out of the grooves.
2. There is no rinse, whatever solvent/solution you are using stays in the grooves.

 

What do you use as a label protector ?

 

after many experiment with very dirty vinyl the best results i have had is with a 5 phase cleaning regime .
1. Tergazyme (enzyme plus detergent) bath using a label protector and then rinse with warm Tap water
2- 80khz Ultrasonic cleaning with 1 gal of warm distilled water +200ml Isopropil+ 2ml Hepastat 256 + 2ml liquinox
3. Vacum cleaning with my home made formula 1 ( distilled water +5% Isopropil+ 1% Hepastat 256 + 1% d-Limonene)
4. Vacum cleaning with my home made formula 2 ( distilled water +5% ethanol+ 1% x-100 surfactant)
5-Double Vacum rinse with distilled water

Hepastat 256 is a must ingredient to use becuase the Tergazyme and liquinox degertent are anionic and they promotes static charge on the cleaned vinyl . H256 also helps to remove mold and kils microfungi living from the carbon on the vinyl

With clean records steps 4 and 5 is the only i need

 

The basin cleaner brand, Vinyl Styl comes with a label protector. It consists of three pieces, one on each side that covers the label and the third that screws into one side and seals the two sides together. It works great. Everyone talks about the spin clean but I like this one much better and it was a little cheaper. I got it through Amazon.

 

I'll use distilled water to combine with my cleaning solution, and I'll use distilled water as a rinse.

I ordered a VPI MW-1 Cyclone, and I can't wait to see what the waste water looks like.

 

Good Lord, man, if I had to go through this routine, I'd never play a record again.

 

That's only for his initial cleaning of a dirty record. Once he's done that, he only uses steps 4 and 5. Could you imagine doing steps 1-5 before each spin? LOL

 

https://www.amazon.com/Nosound-Clea...&sr=8-2&keywords=record+label+protector+clamp

 

A small nitpick from someone who uses a similar formula, but adds some Hepastat to the mixed gallon.
3 Tablespoons = 1 1/2 ounces.
3 teaspoons = 1 Tablespoon.

 

Is not too complicated. I do not like to use steam or wood glue. I had found lots of old records and 45s that plays with loud crackling noise and after they have been cleaned the noise is gone.

 

A little addition of Hepastat is an OK optional add.

I have never experienced anything growing in my grooves, ever, so I have not seen a need to add it.

 

Explaining the purpose of each step:
1. Tergazyme (enzyme plus detergent) bath using a label protector and then rinse with warm Tap water (only if the record have too much visible dirt or mold)
2- 80khz Ultrasonic cleaning with 1 gal of warm distilled water +200ml Isopropil+ 2ml Hepastat 256 + 2ml liquinox (deep cleaning on used thrift store or garage sale vinyl)
3. Vacum cleaning with my home made formula 1 ( distilled water +5% Isopropil+ 1% Hepastat 256 + 1% d-Limonene) (only if the vinyl still have greasy parts or fingerprints)
4. Vacum cleaning with my home made formula 2 ( distilled water +5% ethanol+ 0.1% x-100 surfactant) (final cleaning)
5-Double Vacum rinse with distilled water

 

Like many others here - I use a spin clean with their fluid plus distilled water. Sometimes, I get the oft reported "spin clean crackle" upon the first post cleaning play. When that happens, I run them through the SC again, but with no cleaning fluid, just distilled water. Problem solved.

In regards to the "spin clean crackle" I swear it doesn't happen anymore since I switched over to their new MK3 fluid. It seems less soapy.

 

"Audio Intelligent" with a VPI 16.5 LP cleaner, Works amazing!

 

That Bucket Vac idea in combination with a Vinyl Vac attachment and an old turntable sounds pretty close to one of my own early experiments with all this stuff, and honestly, I might go back to trying something like that again. I've got a similar shop vac head and a wand attachment for that very reason, but in the end I did end up spending about $200 for a Record Doctor. The only reason I did that was because in my head, it seemed to make just a little more sense to vacuum from the *bottom* of the record, and I couldn't really do that on an old turntable platter. Does it really make more sense? I couldn't tell you. But, I *do* swear by the vacuum idea, whether up, down, sideways, or what have you. Now I've got that Yardbirds song stuck in my head.

As for cleaning solutions, I've tried the fluid that came with the Record Doctor, Mobile Fidelity cleaners, and Disc Doctor. I actually do believe that I noticed a real difference after using the Disc Doctor solution, compared to the others. The basic formula I use is two parts solution to one part distilled water. I’ve read in a number of places that the reverse-osmosis distilled water is what you want use, and since I can get that pretty inexpensively at a local grocery store, that’s what I use. I’ve read that if it isn’t reverse-osmosis, it won’t get down in the grooves enough to make a difference. I’ve even seen some magnified phots which support this, and it seems to make sense, I reckon.

When I was writing this post, I looked up the Record Doctor, to make sure I had the right information, and of course an Amazon search result was at the top of the list. Looking at some of the customer reviews, I noticed another fellow had posted a bunch of photos about the guts of the unit, which is worth nothing, but kind of 101 for anyone working with any kind of tool or machine, I reckon - you gotta maintain it once in a while, or things will get pretty gunked up. I've been using my Record Doctor since 2013, I think, and one of the first things I did was take the bottom off, to see just what was going on in there. Since then, I've kept the bottom panel unscrewed, so I can clean the vacuum tube after washing a batch of records.

Just to put things in perspective, I should mention here that I've got several thousand LPs, several hundred 10" records, and maybe a few thousand 7" records, and many of them have been in storage for periods of time while moving across the country some years back, and leasing different living situations until we purchased our next house. A lot of these records were acquired from collectors who stopped collecting, stores that went out of business, and various other record-buying sprees at different times in my life. That just means that a lot of them were not taken care of my their previous owners in the way that I might have tried to, which is why record cleaning is a useful thing. Now that we've been settled down for a while, I've been able to start getting back into my own vinyl mania, but the need for cleaning is definitely there, so when I have a little time, I end up doing a batch or two at once - enough for a couple of dishracks.

The thing that I'm still fumbling with in the process is the cleaning brushes. I was using a set of the Disc Doctor brushes (which are velvet-type microfiber pads), and they seemed to do a fine job, although after about every couple dozen LPs, the pads started becoming unglued from the rubber handles, and I found myself spending a bit more than I wanted to replace them, fairly frequently. Disc Doctor has instructions on how to use their brushes, and that's what I was doing, but when I contacted the company to ask about this, I was a little put off by the response that I was "doing something wrong". You know, every now and then you hear this kind of thing from some businesses, that you're the only one complaining, etc.... well, it could be, but I also know that I've read similar comments on some other audio-related forums, and maybe it's just that some folks aren't going back to the source with their complaints, I dunno.

At any rate, since then, I've tried using various carbon brushes, goat hair brushes, and it just doesn't seem like I'm getting the same results. The little combination brush / squeegee that comes with the Record Doctor Machine isn't really in the running, in my opinion. I'll probably end up having to suck it up (no pun intended) and get more pads for the Disc Doctor brushes, but I'm kind of surprised that some of the other things I tried couldn't have at least done a comparable job. I'm not trying to make them look prettier, but make them *sound* better, and not beat up my stylus, while I'm at it.

There's a comment on Kurt Nauck's site that kind of sums up where I'm at with most of this: "We are stewards of these artifacts for whatever period of time is allotted to us, and rare records should be preserved for future generations." True enough, I reckon. In my own lifetime, I've already seen the so-called "death of vinyl", and then years later, the so-called "vinyl resurgence" some folks are currently enjoying, and that kind of pendulum can go on swinging back and forth for who knows how long. It's great to see other folks thinking about all of this stuff as well.

 

I use those brushes, along with the Disc Doctor cleaning fluid (which works well for me -- rinse well with distilled water afterwards), and I've never had a pad become unglued like that. In fact, removing worn pads completely is something of a challenge, but luckily (in my case) the pads last a really long time.

 

Yes, I agree that the Disc Doctor cleaning fluid definitely seems to beat the others I've tried, although I am going to order some Tergitol, and see how that compares. The Disc Doctor brushes *do* seem to have given the best results as well, but the problem I've been having with them is that the one I used for the cleaning fluid always seems to start coming unglued from the handle - specifically, around the edges - within about a dozen LPs or so. By contrast, the one I used for the distilled water rinse held together much longer. This makes me think that something in the cleaning fluid loosens the glue, whereas the distilled water does not, or at least not as quickly.

The odd thing is that I've heard from some others who use either those brushes or the somewhat similarly constructed MoFi brushes semi-immersed in the fluid (as opposed to sitting on on a platter), like the way Chris demonstrated in the Cleaning records with Tergitol thread. My approach was always to try and keep the brushes from getting too saturated with either the cleaning fluid or the water, but in Chris' video, for example, you can see the MoFi brush just sitting in the cleaning tray, with apparently no adverse results. I know the MoFi brush is not exactly the same thing, but one would think that constant immersion like that would cause the pad to just fall off after a bit.

And yes, getting back to the Disc Doctor pads, when it is time to replace them, that can be a bit of a bear to wrestle with, as the edges seem to come off easily enough, but the main surface doesn't want to give it up, and then I end up trying to encourage remnants of the adhesive off the rubber surface. I know I've read similar comments on some of the audio boards / forums from other folks who have reported experiencing some of these same issues, but for the life of me, when I try to search for some of those now, I'm not finding a thing.

 

I use a MoFi brush and Triton X-100 in a bath.

Yes, the glue will gradually come unglued at the seam where it wraps around, but only after several hundred cleanings.

At this point, it is time to replace the brush pad. They are designed to be replaced and come two to a kit for $4.99

Mobile Fidelity - Replacement Record Brush Pads (Pr)

 

Yep. I actually *have* a surplus of backup replacement pads for both th MoFi and Disc Doctor brushes.

I would expect the pads to become unglued after hundreds of cleanings, but since I had not yet tried to replicate the setup that Chris had demonstrated, I was surprised to see that it could handle just sitting in the cleaning fluid like that.

Now, comparing that to the issue I described having with the Disc Doctor brushes, it makes me think that the adhesive used for the MoFi pads is perhaps a bit more resilient, at least when used in conjunction with the Tergitol - or Triton - than the adhesive used for the DD pads seems to have been when used with the DD cleaning fluid. The thing about the DD brushes is that it seems to me they are not too forgiving about becoming saturated with fluid. I like the basic design and feel of the DD brushes, but if it turns out that the MoFi brushes can handle saturation better, then that's what I'll end up using.

Since I still haven't used the Tergitol yet, I reckon that in order to gauge more accurate results, I'l have to try a few A/B comparison tests:
• Tergitol, with MoFi brushes, DD brushes
• DD cleaning fluid, with MoFi brushes, DD brushes

Since I have a Record Doctor Vacuum Machine, and also a KAB EV-1 Manual Record-Cleaning Machine, I want to try a few interim tests as well, as some folks have been employing the vacuum process after washing.

Since I have the two units, I've been thinking about employing a process that follows these steps - using one vacuum for the wash process, and the second for the rinse process:
wash > vacuum > rinse > vacuum > rack dry.

There are probably a lot of different permutations of testing that I could get lost in, but at some point, I just want to have a simple and quick method of dealing with this, so I can do the thing I wanted to do when I bought all those records in the first place: listen to the music!