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

Yup!

 

Your final step, sucking up the water with a vacuum is a great way to get rid of the water, I agree with you completely. I will probably not go to the trouble of using the vacuum method, as I have had good luck for so long with the super soft, absorbent hand and bath towels, but it's a great choice when it comes to getting rid of the water on the record surface!

 

Ok, let me show off some of my ultra cleaning work. I magnified as much as I am capable of magnifying, and I hope it proves my point. Pictured is the edge of a record that got wet with dirty water over a year ago, this is a throw away album, I do not listen to it, but I had it in a pile. So, the first pic is the dirty water stain.




My second picture is a more magnified picture of the ugly dirty water stain, again, this has been on this record well over a year, as it was a throw away record that I just did not throw away.





This next pic is AFTER I cleaned the edge of this old record with Dawn/Paint Brush and some tap water force.




Finally, this is one more straight on pic of the cleaned and dried area, I trust you can see a significant difference!



If you identify the Artist and Name of this record, YOU WIN THE $7,000,000.00 PRIZE!

 

Kind of Blue - Miles Davis

 

Great guess, but no soap!

 

Nah, looks to me like three tracks on that side, with a quiet passage to start, some rocking, and then another more lengthy, relatively quiet period, before riding it out rocking....

 

Reading this thread reminds me of just another reason I'll never, ever go back to vinyl. All these different cleaning solutions, bit's of the cloth getting stuck to the record, using a record vacuum, wood glue, etc to clean them? When I can just pop in a CD or pick something I've ripped or stream songs off the 'net.

In the old days I had a round, lint free soft foam roller brush for cleaning my records. I'd put the record on the turntable, dip the brush in alcohol, get the entire record wet, & play it that way. Even on my most worn records that reduced the snaps. crackles. pops & other noises a great deal. But guess what? Since I moved into the latter part of the 20th century, (& then into the 21st century) & went digital with CDs & some streaming, (still mostly CDs), I don't have any of those issues anymore & haven't for thirty years!

Progress. It's a wonderful thing.

 

I think it's the tinkering around with stuff that makes it fun. I'm probably older than you and records was all I knew, I have accumulated a good number of records since the 60's, and I like to go back in time and put those records on and hear them, but I'm a strong convert to digital, and do both streaming and storing files on my computer and use JRiver, great program. I do like to do my vinyl thing as well, but I try and not get too darn crazy. I think to keep up with, or get close to digital as it has evolved, one would have to spend about $10,000.00 on analog equipment, and that won't happen with me, but I have been having fun, striving for that perfect set up with my Acrylic Marantz TT and Parasound JC-3 Jr.

 

Well, at 58 I'm not exactly a spring chicken!

I collected vinyl for right at two decades, (from 1973-1990), & switched to CDs "kicking & screaming" because I couldn't find new vinyl by 1990. I thought I'd keep listening to my vinyl collection & use CDs for acquiring newer music. And then I started playing the CDs on the same system I played vinyl on. I was a convert right then & not long after my huge album collection began getting sold off. The best way I can explain the sonic difference for me is that on that same system, vinyl sounded muffled & flat in comparison to CDs.

My system at the time consisted of a Scott FM amplifier/receiver, a Technics linear tracking turntable, an Acoustic Research belt driven 100% manual turntable, Pioneer reel to reel, Technics cassette deck, a Realistic stereo echo/reverb unit, a Technics computerized touchpad 16 band, (8 per channel) graphic equalizer, & a pair of Electro Voice recording studio monitors in handmade oak cabinets, with separate tweeter controls, & built in airboxes for added bass, I added a Sony 5 CD changer when I got into CDs, but everything else stayed the same, so I was able to make a direct sonic comparison, & even more so when I began replacing my vinyl with the same CDs..

I kept my 45s & a handful of albums but didn't play them anymore. I still have them too, but I have far more CDs, (I stopped counting those when they topped 10,000 several years ago).

Oh, even though I'm 58 they say that you're only as old as the woman you feel & my wife is 38, so I'll take that!

 

There is no question digital is more convenient, but cleaning records really isn’t the headache this thread makes it out to be. A vacuum makes it very easy, just a few minutes and the record is clean, you can proceed to just pop it on whenever you want to listen to it, probably never needing to clean it again. If you do, again it’s just a few minutes. For really dirty old records, maybe it takes more attention, but one can just as easily not bother with those if not up for the chore. Yes, it is more work than a CD, but it’s still not that much work. It’s understandably not worth it to you because you prefer CD, anyway, but it really shouldn’t be a primary reason for avoiding vinyl.

 

Vinyl is a funny thing. When i read threads on this great forum about issues with LPs it makes my heart sink. I have been collecting LPs since i was 16 and i also love CDs. I have never had any real issues with LPs. All mine sound great. I very rarely "clean" them and i cant remember the last time i had crud build up on mt stylus. The odd second hand album has been in need of a clean but otherwise my albums sound superb and all in all i am very happy with the format. Sometimes i think things are best left alone.

 

while i use a vacuum based rcm for regular cleaning, i saved many used records with the wood glue method.
in my opinion for really dirty records, wood glue works best. ( followed by cleaning on my vacuum rcm )

 

Let me just share an experience I had. Being very afraid of putting wood glue on my records, I got an old record and tried the technique out. The trick is to put the glue on in a very thin coat, where it will peel off in one piece, looking like a yellow record, and actually it can be played, if you are lucky enough to pull it all off in one solid piece, although I would certainly not do that. Here's the thing, you can easily leave a "tiny" spot of glue that, for whatever reason just does no pull off with the rest. On one record this happened to me and that tiny piece of glue was totally stuck in that groove, deep down in there and you could not really see it unless that small spot was magnified. That one little stuck piece of glue was enough to made the arm on the test turntable jump completely off the groove, so you see, it's very easy for this to happen as it happened to me, just doing the test. Once there is something stuck in your record groove like glue, it's tough to get it back out, in this case we had to use a very tiny pin to dislodge the glue piece, and that was not good. It looked like the record was completely clean and yet that little piece of glue was indeed stuck way down in the groove.

 

Can anyone recommend a label protector for use with an Okki Nokki or any rcm? Thanks

 

The GroovMaster is considered the best. I bought mine on Amazon, not a GroovMaster but close, it was about $22.00.

 

Never happened to me. And I was cleaning my records with Titebond II wood glue for the past ten years. I don't even know how many records I've cleaned, probably hundreds. You just have to learn how to do it properly, I agree this method not for everyone and it's time consuming, but IMO nothing cleans records better than wood glue and it's not that complicated as many people think.

P.S. If something stuck in the groove as result of cleaning (again, never happened to me), worse case scenario - You can just re-apply the glue, wait for it to dry and it will peel it away, guaranteed.

 

Im not quite sure how a GroovMaster would work with a record cleaning machine, where you need to put the album on the machines' spindle.

 

I have tried using half of my GroovMaster with my RCM (which has a threaded spindle), and it is too large to use with the vacuum arm. This may vary depending on the length of the particular RCM’s arm, though.

 

The only issue with wood glue is that it can leave a good bit of static so you might still want to have a CF brush and/or Zerostat handy.

 

I have never had an issue with wetting labels using the Okki Nokki but you could make one yourself . Like described in this article - DIY Groovmaster Label Protector to Clean Vinyl Records | Vinyl Hive

 

Wood glue is a horrible unneeded solution. It's like suggesting that instead of having a dirty car washed and detailed first you strip it to primer, repaint and clear coat it.

Get a spin clean machine and use it.

 

I am trying to find anyone that cares about the contents of you post....

Nope.

 

Lemme see, three people have commented on it so far, (including you), so at least three people care about it, including you.....

But hey! Thanks for playing! Sorry your attempt at sarcasm failed, but we'll send you a copy of the home version of the game.

Bye, bye now.....

 

Bull****!!!
I have my experience of many years and it always worked great for me. Spending your money on all kind of "spin clean machines" is for amateurs IMO.
If anything even comes close to wood glue method, it's a VPI machine with vacuum, but it's expensive, takes too much space and in my experience, still not always cleans as good as Titebond II.

 

Good for you. Boy do I feel dumb now still liking records!