Did I destroy my records after cleaning them? Is there a way to reverse the damage?

As someone mentioned above : https://www.amazon.com/Vinyl-Vac-33...=vinyl+vac&dpPl=1&dpID=51unsDyEZCL&ref=plSrch
There are several youtube clips how to use it. I made my own.
This is an interesting mod: make a hole + washer at the end of the suction piece so it fits over the spindle of your tt

 

You're learning. We all did it. You need a cheap effective cleaning system until you decide if you want to spend $ for a RCM. Try this: Get a clean cotton bath towel and lay it on a hard surface. Lay the record on it. Get some isopropyl alcohol at your local drug store. (no matter what the internet world says iso alcohol does not hurt or affect vinyl). Make a small folded cleaning patch about the size of a postage stamp; I use plain white Bounty paper towels. Wet the patch with the alcohol. Gently run the wetted patch along with the grooves using a little finger pressure (not much). Refold the patch as necessary. If you see any 'color' on the patch after a run -- thats whats been removed from the record surface. NOW rinse the record grooves area. If your tap water is not 'hard' water you can use that - but then do a final rinse (of the rinse) with distilled water. (We have soft water here plus use a faucet filter, I rinse my vinyl under warm/hot running water). Now use a clean 100% cotton bath towel to dry it. Rotate the record gently in the towel draped over a cupped hand, or place each side of the record down on the towel laid on a hard surface. See if this works to re-quiet your sprayed records.

 

I hope that's an old junker TT and not the guy's main rig. Water + turntable = not a good idea.

 

Particles drop to the bottom of the basin. I change the water every 10-15 records or sooner depending on the shape of the records. Turning in the basin breaks up the particles some of which remain on the surface of the record. The record is then placed on an old turntable and each side is vacuumed removing the particles that have risen to the surface and those still in the grooves that have been loosened. It also dries the record. But then I place the record in a second basin that is filled with distilled water and turn a few rotations to remove any residual cleaning solution. Then I dry a second time with the vacuum, place in a new inner sleeve and i’m Done. I think this is a very efficient system.

 

But you're still giving the records a bath and not a shower, which was my point. So although you may be happy with this system, is NOT the same thing as having an RCM and eschewing bath cleaning methods altogether. That was my point.

 

You need to add three more steps to the process, vacuum when you take it out of the basin, then using a separate basin rinse in distilled water, then vacuum again. What happens when you don’t include those 3 steps is particles that the spin clean or similar basin combined with a solution have dislodged / broken up will fall to the bottom, but not all of them. Some will sit on the surface on the vinyl others will remain loose but still in the grooves. If you don’t vacuum them up they go right back where they came from. You also need to rinse off the remnants of cleaning solution.

 

And another reason I prefer CDs! I kid, I like both formats, just wanted to be the first to say that on this thread. I’ll be getting a Spin Clean for Christmas so will report back on my experience. Up to now I’ve taken the approach of the less contact with the LP surface the better. If there is any debris I’ll use some distilled water and a lens cloth on that area, rubbing in the direction of the grooves only. There is also a spin clean cloth thread open right now with people liking the method just discussing which cloths are best to use.

 

There are a lot of particles in tap water and additives in dishwashing detergent like dawn. I’d suggest 88 cent a gallon distilled water, isopropyl alcohol and Triton X-100.

 

Search “vinyl vac” on google or just go to Amazon and type it in. The product does just what you described. There is a hole near the tip of the attachment that goes over the spindle on a turntable. All you need is an old turntable, a shop vac and this attachment.

 

Well a bath are much more relaxing than a shower.

 

I've got a Moth RCM with lid in mint working condition if anyone is after one?
Would have to be collected as I don't have box and packing .
Still have half a gallon of moth cleaning fluid to throw in.
Is £350 a good price?

 

Uhhh, Im pretty sure thats not true. Just logically speaking that seems so wrong. I mean you just tried cleaning with a fluid and cloth which is similar.

 

Here’s a good cleaning solution recipe.
1. Make 1 gallon of 10% Triton X-100 by pouring out 13 oz of distilled water from a gallon. Replace it with 13 oz of Triton X-100. Now you have enough Triton 10% to last for years.

2. Take one gallon of distilled water and pour out 17 oz. Replace it with 13 oz of isopropyl alcohol and 4 oz of the Triton X-100 10% that you made in step 1.

3. Shake it up a bit and you’ve got a great cleaning solution for much less than you would spend buying a mystery solution commercially.

You can get the Triton x-100 for about $35 for a gallon and diluting it to 10% will make it last for years to come. Distilled water .88 a gallon, isopropyl alcohol 32oz for 2.39. So a gallon of solution costs maybe $1.50?

 

Same experience for me when first cleaning.
I realized doing it during winter times and the way I did it added lots of static though which made noise. Which fooled me into thinking it was dirtying the records more. I used an RCM though so not the same. Just clean them properly and they should sound fine again.

 

In my personal experience, they are wrong. For example, the Spin Clean does a vastly better and more thorough job than my old-school Discwasher brush. The brush is fine for LPs that are dusty (though it never collects every single piece of visible dust), but if you want to remove all the dust in addition to fingerprints, random mystery gunk, and/or beads of dried residue from previous owners' attempts at cleaning an LP, the brush is useless, but the Spin Clean tackles that stuff quite well.

The thing with the Spin Clean is that the LP is getting a bath, and I just think that's going to be more effective than simply using some brush and whatever fluid it comes with or that you concoct yourself.

Edit: Like patient_ot says above, you just have to follow the directions, and you should get good results, e.g., only use distilled water, use the amount of the Spin Clean fluid specified in the directions, etc. I do think Spin Clean is a little ambitious in how many LPs they claim you can clean in one session. I never really do batches of more than about 15-16 records. Plus, I find it's better if you have more cloths on hand than just the two the basic kit comes with. Two cloths will become too damp to be effective after about 8-10 records, and if you keep using damp cloths, I find they can leave streaks.

 

The thing that I wonder about regarding the spin clean are the pads as opposed to brushes. I don’t see how they get down into the grooves? It is nice to have a clean surface but the playing is in the grooves.

 

But the pads kind of are brushes. The surfaces of the pads that came with mine are covered in these tiny, stiff yet soft bristles. These would seem to reach down into the grooves.

 

The release agent from the mould is an urban myth to sell products.

 

I bought a Spin Clean a few years ago and just haven't gotten around to using it. I keep wondering how I'm going to dry all of those microfiber towels that will get wet???

I do give all my records a careful wipe with a Discwasher brush, very lightly moistened on one side, followed by a second Discwasher brush to remove any remaining moisture, followed by a carbon fiber brush, prior to playing each side. I make my own discwasher fluid, by adding about 3-5 drops of Dawn dishwashing detergent to 1 full gallon of distilled water, later to be put in smaller containers. The Dawn isn't meant to clean the records, only to dispel the surface tension of the water. The magnetic properties of the water molecules are what help to pick up loose dirt and reduce static charges. The carbon fibers do the same thing, but in a different way. Does this remove dirt adhered to the grooves. I doubt it. But it does definitely remove anything loose and keep the records from getting dirtier.

 

What bad advice. It doesn't take long to accumulate a $12,000 record collection not to mention the cost of a good stylus/cart. I used to be like Wally and thought RCM's were crazy, until I finally got a VPI 16.5. The VPI has paid for itself many times over and is over ten years old and still going strong. I've had many cases of buyers remorse in this hobby, but NOT the VPI. Like Peter Lederman of Soundsmith says, get the most expensive RCM you can afford. It's like my son in law who traveled all the way to Norway to buy collectable metal albums, and who has a large and very expensive collection. Yet he balks at spending $600.oo for a VPI 16.5. Insane.

 

I use a Spin Clean and a Kab EV-1 and my own vacuum. Spin Clean to scrub and the Kab to vacuum, rinse and vacuum again.

KAB Electro Acoustics http://www.kabusa.com

 

Well said. It's easy to scoff at a good RCM when you have 200 records. When you approach 500-700 that's when you wish you would have bought one long ago.

At one point not long ago I was heavily into rimfire bench rest competition. Some folks would spend 4 days on the road, meals, room, etc. and skimp on ammo, the least expensive portion and going home wondering why their targets looked like they used a pea shooter.

 

Easy - I hang them on a clothes-drying rack. It's not like they're sopping wet or anything, just damp, so just hanging 'em overnight is a enough. I seldom do more than 16-18 records in a batch, and for me that only requires four cloths, so it's really not a big deal.

 

I hate to break it to you...but you basically moved the dirt around your records and added in another contaminant to potentially cause more noise.

All cleaning agents need to be removed by a thorough rinse or vacuum.

 

Honestly, while I have a Record Doctor vacuum cleaning machine, and before than had an EV-1 and they work fine, I find for most records where all that's needed is a light duty cleaning, my old Orbitrac works great.

I use one pad as a cleaning fluid applicator, and one pad to dry.

I use a home brew solution which is like 10 or 15% alcohol, a few drops of a surfactant (something without dyes or perfumes -- ie, no Dawn or dish washing fluid or anything -- tergitol or something like that, just enough so that the fluid spreads and doesn't pool up on the record surface), and clean water, but any decent solution with 5-15% alcohol ought to do. I like the alcohol solution because they evaporate quickly. A lot people swear by this solvent or detergent or that solvent or detergent, and eschew alcohol, but I've tried a bunch of things and have always come back to an alcohol based solution as the one I've found leaves no trace best, and perfectly adequately as a one step. Most other kinds of solutions I've tried leave behind some sort of residue that either gunks up the stylus on first listen, or needs lots of rinsing to remove, and that even includes alcohol based solutions with enough surfactant to make it function as a detergent. Those kinds of solutions might be necessary for filthy records I suppose. But if you buy your records new and take care of them, they're unlikely to ever become truly filthy (if you bought 'em like me as a teenager in the '70s, that's a different story).

I wet the front of one Orbitrac pad with cleaner and run that over the record for a few passes, then use the other pad for a final dry. The old Orbitrac pads shed, so I do a carbon fiber brush pass after drying and before playing. I don't know if the new pads are any better when it comes to shedding.

I only break out the vacuum cleaner for really dirty records these days. To me it's a pain going through the multiple washes and rinse and drying cycles, and unless the record is really filthy, I don't think it's necessary relative to the what I can be achieved with the Orbitrac. If you're buying a lot of used record, by all means, heavier duty, deep groove cleaning can be necessary. But a full removal of fluids and drying of records is going to be crucial with a heavy wet clean. (I'm not a fan of air drying, that always is going to leave behind some solids when the liquid evaporates.)

I see the Orbitrac is back in production now. I don't know anything about the new production. I don't know about the cleaning fluid they sell with it. And I don't like spraying fluid on the records because it can be hard to fully get up if it sprays into placed the vacuum or Orbitrac pad or other brush doesn't reach. So I prefer the results from wetting a pad and using the wet pad to clean. I also keep an optical cloth -- the kind of thing you'd use to clean or dry fine optics -- if I have to dab up some extra fluid on a record. I wouldn't use an abrasive microfiber cloth or anything like that.

But for someone looking for good, effective cleaning on the cheap, I suggest trying the Orbitrac used as described above (and might as well buy extra pads, if you use the Orbitrac my way, the pad you use for cleaning will get filthy and worn and need to be replaced. The drying pad will last much longer).