Do not lose hope, as COVID moves to the rear view; and people emerge from their various forms of hibernation, keep your eye & ears attuned to those subtle hints of amore so as not miss the opportunity, and when opportunity knocks, do not ask who is there, whip open that door and say here I am ready and willing. Best of Luck,
Propylene glycol has many uses Propylene Glycol Sector Group - Home (propylene-glycol.com); and its very soluble with water; its used as an anti-freeze; its used for humidors (it absorbs moisture); its a bio-inhibitor at >25% and at this level it can act as a defoamer but at very low levels - no (I tried it); its used in foods, but for cleaners its use Liquid detergents - Propylene Glycol Sector Group (propylene-glycol.com) is as a "stabilizer for the dirt-removing ingredients, and, at the same time, helps them to retain their function even at lower temperatures. Thus, cleaning liquids remain crystal-clear at normal use temperatures". Not much use for cleaning records unless you wanted to thicken the cleaner so it sticks better to the record.
Damn, I thought I was done! An odd wrinkle, and no that is not the name of my new girlfriend... I ordered some glass bottles and sprayers wanting to keep all my cleaning fluids and such in good condition. I just mixed what I thought was pretty much the exact same solution that Rushton suggested as a final rinse/vacuum, which is laboratory regrade purified water (#2) with 3% Ethanol. I've been using that as a rinse for quite a while and it has always gone on the record as if a surfactant was in the water, very smoothly spreading across the vinyl surface with no beading. Well, strangely, I just mixed a new bottle with I think the exact same mixture and put it in one of my nice, new glass spray bottles and suddenly it's all beading up on the surface as if I was putting tap water on it. I have NO bloody idea why it would be doing that all of the sudden. Any thoughts...? Thanks!
First - shake the new glass bottle with the water + 3% ethanol and see if it foams. If it does, there was some kind of residue in the glass bottle. Dump and refill and see if that does not fix the problem. New bottles are often not clean; recall from my paper Chapter III where I first clean/rinse the spray bottles before using. Also, any thing else new? Is the ethanol new? Is this a recently cleaned record and with what cleaning agent? If the record you are trying to rinse has a surfactant residue on the surface when water+3% ethanol is applied it can appear to wet the surface but what is actually happened is that the surfactant residue is aligned with the oil loving tail attached to the record with the water loving head up - so the surfactant attracts the water and it appears to be wetting the surface. The water + 3% ethanol has a surface tension of about 55 dynes/cm which is higher than the record (~38 dynes/cm) and has some wetting but not great. However, if the record is clean and free of most reside, when you spray water+3% ethanol it may just bead up.
Yeah, after posting this above it did occur to me that the bottle was brand new and that I had NOT rinsed it out first! DUH!!! So, I'm hoping that was it. I'm a little confused by what you say after that though. It SOUNDS like what you are saying is that if there is some surfactant residue on the record it WILL wet the surface (which means it will LOOK like it has wetting agents in it and NOT bead up, right?) But, it also sounds like just due to the dynes/cm being higher than the record, that is should ALSO look like it is wetting or apply smoothly and NOT bead up, right? In all cases I am rinsing either after a run through the US RCM with it's added ingredients, or I am rinsing after giving it a good scrub with a strong cleaner such as L'art du Son or AI15 (and in future the Alconex) So, in all cases the record HAS already been treated with some kind of surfactant and I'm rinsing it off. It just seemed weird that it always seemed to spread just fine before I mixed this new bottle. So, I'm HOPING that that is it because otherwise it doesn't seem to make sense. Also too, FWIW, before I started adding the ethanol and just used the lab purified water by itself, it ALWAYS spread evenly just like it had surfactants in it. That's why it seemed so weird that AFTER adding the 3% ethanol it suddenly beaded up all over the place.
Yep, that was it... So, the whole reason it happened was due to being a Dumb@ss... (the other members here are probably saying, 'We could've told you that!') So vital lessons learned: 1. Don't be a Dumb@ss 2. Wash out the damn bottle first before filling with precious fluids. 3. Wash out the bottle AND stop being a Dumb@ss. Well, that about sums it up. I'm now going to go work on my postgraduate doctorate in Total Dumb@ssness
Good heavens, do not beat your self up. Believe me we have all fallen into the trap of believing new is clean; just think of the endless debate on whether 'new' records should be cleaned. Years ago when I was implementing new precision oxygen cleaning processes throughout the Navy, contractors and vendors and assisting some of our NATO allies, the examples of new not being any where near clean where never ending. After every installation I had to stress that the first item to clean was the cleaning equipment.
Thanks! I'm just glad that the water was sheeting like it was supposed to. Nothing like a good sheet to make you feel better
I just thought of a little 'cheat' for rinsing and I wanted to see what you think. How about if I had a tub of distilled water which would be basically the same dimensions as the US tank, but I would only use it to rinse. Maybe I could add just a little alcohol or a little surfactant to get the water to spread across the vinyl to 'rinse' it, but not enough to leave more residue, or I could just use distilled water alone. I could even have my little motor turn the records the same way it does in the US tank so that just like in the US tank, it would turn slowly enough (about .6 rpm) so that the distilled water would drain off for the most part as the spindle turns but would be turning fast enough, like in the US tank, where the vinyl wouldn't dry and the surface would stay wet. I could say let it turn the records for like 5 minutes so that they would travel through the water a few times, and THEN set the spindle out like I used to and just let it air dry. Now, there wouldn't be any agitation, but the records would slowly travel through the distilled water a few times, vertically of course just like they turn in the US tank. Would that actually be effective to 'rinse' off most of the surfactant from the US tank? Shirley that would be better than just taking them directly out of the US tank and letting them dry like I use to do. Would the action of just travelling vertically through the distilled water and having it drain off be enough of a rinse do you think? Because, that would be a trick way that would be streamlined and much faster if you think it would be effective.
Any rinse is going to be beneficial and if its convenient you will do it. When rinsing - I would not recommend adding surfactant to wet the record, the record is already wet from the surfactant cleaning process. Also, when rinsing with a bath of DIW, over time, drag-out from the UCM will eventually add surfactant to the DIW rinse bath. If you are cleaning records in batches/stacked (>1 at a time), a bath of DIW as you describe is very convenient. You can add a bit of alcohol (say 2.5%) to the rinse water that will speed up the drying process, but it can be compromised. Once the drag-out increases the surfactant concentration in the DIW bath (concentration unknown), then as I wrote "VIII.8.4 However, for aqueous cleaners with IPA and surfactants, the article abstract “The Vapor Pressures Of Ethanol-Water Solutions Of Detergents” by B.DFlockhart, 1960 indicates that the affinity between detergent and alcohol is strong enough such that the solution boiling point is not lowered, but instead increased. This would imply that alcohol as an ingredient with detergents does not improve drying,..". A simple test to check when the DIW water bath should be replaced could be the simple tests that I describe in Section XIV.13; note that XIV.13 was written assuming no rinse step, but with a separate rinse step as you would be doing all steps are now applicable. XIV.13.a - Check TDS. When TDS >10 ppm, change out the DIW bath. XIV.13.b - Check Particulate. When turbid, change out the DIW bath. XIV.13.c - Check for Foam. When a shake tests develops a stable foam, change out the DIWbath. Of course, if you install your own DIW system as I discuss Section VII.4.c, then you use the brute force approach - have available lots of DIW so that there is no bath management - replace after every say 5-batches. The number of DIY options is near endless because a truly plug & play "precision aqueous record cleaning system" does not yet exist. The form factor for such as device could be in vertical cabinet (about 3-4 ft tall) with wheels of course, using only one Ultrasonic tank (UCM) with dual frequencies for up to 6-records, but with reservoirs below - one for cleaner, one for DIW, and separate pump/filtration systems for each reservoir. The most difficult part is drying. The UCM could have a tall cover with fans & HEPA filter for drying or use a spin-dry method. Just some ruminations.
Excellent, thank you! That is pretty much what I thought. Also too, like with the other 'silkworm' test I did, I could always play a full side of a record that was 'rinsed' this way and see if any deposits are left on it. Sounds good. I did think that at least that was a step that would do some rinsing. Having your own DIW source would certainly help in a case like this. ***EDIT Should I heat the rinse water; would that help it 'rinse' any better? Also, would say about 5 minutes with my motor turning the records in the rinse water for roughly 3 revolutions be enough of a rinse?
Anything that adds another cleaning step, be it drying with mocrofiber cloths or rinsing in DW or a DW/IPA mix, should reduce remaining contaminants on a record surface by at least an order of magnitude. If you remove 90% of residual liquid on a cleaned record by drying with a towel you are reducing the solids that are left by 90%. If your towel absorbs 99% of the liquid still on the record after the cleaning bath you are reducing solids by 99%. If you rinse in a large clean second bath the dilution of the original bath water is easily 10:1 and is more likely 100:1 Consider the possibility that 10 ml of liquid are left on a record once it has been cleaned (extremely conservative, as the number is usually much less than 5 ml). If you are rinsing in a bath containing 2 liters (2,000 ml) of clean fluid, even if your record leaves the second bath with 10 ml of fluid, so long as the fluids (originally on the record and in the rinse bath) are well mixed the 1st record leaves with residual solids reduced by 99.5% (10 mls diluted into 2,010 mls). As you clean additional records the rinse bath will gradually accumulate more solids. But it will take more than 20 record rinses before the solids can get near 10% of the concentration of the fluid on the records before rinsing. If you are using a 4 liter rinse container it will take more than 40 records being rinsed to get to this 10% threshold (which would still clean 90% of solids off of records). If you use a large 7 liter bath you can rinse 70 records before reaching the 10% threshold. The above analysis assumes 10 ml of water on a record coming out of the wash process. The reality is much less, as even the 5 ml is a stretch for most processes. But this is easy to confirm. Take a washed (but not rinsed or dried) record and measure it's weight on a gram scale. Then continue with whatever process you normally use. After the record is completely dry weigh it again. Water (and dilute water solutions) weigh about 1 gram per ml. If the wet record weighed 2.5 grams more than the dry, then the retained water after the wash was only 2.5 ml. If the weight difference is less than 1 gram, the retained water was less than 1 ml. This is important in determining how many records can be rinsed before you should replace the rinse solution. Because if it is only 1 ml and you are rinsing in a 2 liter bath you can do 200 records before the solution gets near my 10% threshold. Regarding heating the solution I would say you don't need to. While warmer solutions are better for dissolving organic residuals, it turns out cooler is better for inorganic salts. Given the low amounts of solids you are dealing with, the key is having the rinse occur quickly after the wash.
Excellent! That sure sounds WAY more promising than I had thought. I was just trying to be clever and lazy (not an easy combination to maintain, I assure you!) but that's great if it actually works! I will be using a rinse bath that will approximate the dimensions of the US tank, so according to your information that volume of water should go a moderately long ways. I will of course use the TDS meter and keep an eye on the other parameters as well. I also can't wait to try the Silkworm Test! (I wonder if I should write a paper on that...)
Just a last quickie... The rinse tank seems to be working beautifully! The distilled water seems to coat the records very well. I was just wondering, do I really need to leave them in the rinse tank more than just a few revolutions (approximately .6 rpm) or, as long as the water has fully covered all the vinyl, can I take them out to dry. Interestingly, the water seems to sheet off really well and looks like it should dry fairly quickly!
Here is a quick snapshot. Wow, I can really tell that the vinyl looks a LOT more rinsed as opposed to leaving the tank fluid on it to dry. BIG difference!
Hmmm... I see my image posted above suddenly disappeared. I've been having trouble hosting pictures with Google Photos showing here on the SHF threads. Please forgive the nuisance, but I'm going to try another way to post it here and see if it shows and if it lasts. Thanks kindly for the indulgence! I'll check back tomorrow to see if it is still displaying...
I recently acquired a Kirmuss and have been toying with different protocols, and am struggling a bit to find something effective and quick. The records I have done a full restoration treatment on have come out great, but with new records I need something faster and more effective. Running a new record through 3 x 5 minute cycles with 2 surfactant applications is not getting it done. The stylus is gunking up and noise remains. I have read a lot of this thread and there is some great info, but I was hoping I could ask the thread for some input to best utilize the tools I have available and find a process that will work best for 95% of records. OR maybe even one that equals or surpasses the full restoration process and can be used for all records. I am open to buying some more chemicals as well. Thus far I have only used water and alcohol in the bath as prescribed by Kirmuss. I have only used the Kirmuss surfactant and applied it manually with Kirmuss brush. Here is a list of the supplies I have at hand: - Kirmuss machine - Record Doctor V (I would like to avoid too much vacuuming, as the RD is not a very good vacuum machine. I may invest in a different vacuum down the line, or attempt to mod the RD for better performance) - Triton X-100 - Distilled Water - 99% Iso alcohol - Spin Clean - MoFi brushes - Sleeve city goat hair brush - drying rack - Ultra Pure water I'm well convinced, especially after listening to the comparison clip by @vinyldoneright that the optimal method will utilize both mechanical scrubbing andUS cleaning. Some of my ideas with questions for each. Any and all input is welcome. 1) run ultrasonic bath with Triton X, alcohol, and distilled water. follow with manual scrubbing of triton based solution. then vacuum or back to the US. Rinse with Ultra pure water applied by MoFi brush - How much Triton X do I use in the bath fluid? Most formulas I see are for tergitol or tergikleen. Struggling to determine the best formula for bath solution - Maybe add a spin clean rinse with distilled water? but the RD has a hard time vacuuming that much fluid. maybe drip dry and then rinse 1 or 2x with ultra pure water? - Do I need to add hepastat anywhere in my process? Or any other chemicals? - if the bath already has triton X, can I scrub with a separate triton formula and put it back in the bath or does it need vacuumed first? do I risk over concentrating the bath? 2) Leave ultrasonic solution as just distilled water and alcohol. Apply a triton X solution with mofi brush. vacuum and rinse with ultra pure water. - How many cycles would I need? - How long before the US bath has too much surfactant in it that is being added with each record? - Same as above as a possible spin clean rinse 3) first clean with triton x and alcohol solution using mofi brush. vacuum. into US with a bath that includes surfactant. remove, scrub again with triton solution. vacuum or back to US and then vacuum. rinse. - same question as #1 with regards to bath solution formula - what formula should I use for the scrubbing solution? I am also open to any other processes that maybe I overlooked. I don't mind putting some time and work into getting the records as clean as can be. I am able to do three 12" at once with the top I have on the Kirmuss. Any help is much appreciated. I have a huge backlog of records to clean and want to get started ASAP. Thanks in advance!
Your post is quite extensive and would require a 'book' to answer. So, on that note; read this quick intro Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records-2nd Edition - The Vinyl Press and then download the book (145 pages; its free). Your 1st interest will be Chapter XIV, Para XIV.8 to XIV.12. You have pretty much everything you need to put together a good pre-clean/final-clean/dry process. My only suggestion would be to add Alconox Liqinox Amazon.com: Alconox - 1232-1 1232 Liquinox Anionic Critical Cleaning Liquid Detergent, 1 quart Bottle: Industrial & Scientific for your pre-clean step. Para XIV.9 addresses the various options you have for pre-clean; and you have the hardware. Chapter XIV does not address Triton X100, but if using Triton X100 for XIV.10 final-clean with rinse (same as @latheofheaven) use at ~0.1% (1 mL/L) along with 2.5% IPA & DIW. You could use the your Record Dr for dry. I would not recommend Triton X100 for final clean without rinse since the concentration required just to achieve good wetting is so high (0.04%) - see Chapter IX for explanation. For a no-rinse final-clean with UCM - see the various chemistries XIV.10. Keep in mind, that there is quite a bit of chemistry & method that goes into developing "your own" cleaning process; but I have to assume that since you have accumulated most the equipment and 'volunteered' to do this, you are willing to take some time to understand the basics so you understand the why you are doing what you are doing and this will allow you to adjust your process as you see fit. Otherwise, once you put together your process, you should find it relatively easy with good flow from step to step and reasonably fast (not more than 10 min). Good Luck!
Thank you for that. I most definitely plan on rinsing, regardless of what process I settle on. No rinse to me just does not jive with my experience in cleaning records. I have even experienced noticeable differences with rinsing using distilled water vs ultra pure water. I will not go without ultra pure water moving forward. I apply it with a dedicated MoFi brush and then vacuum. I am not 100% married to using the vacuum, and am open to air dry if preferable. I will read into that document and I'm sure I will be back with questions. While I have always been inclined in science and math, chemistry is my weak point in those fields.
The book is written mostly from a process perspective, so the chemistry is a supporting actor and what is presented should not be over-whelming. WRT ultra pure water you may wish to read Chapter VII that discusses water and then look at Table V. If you are hearing a difference between distilled vs ultra-pure water for rinse you must have a very revealing system and very sensitive hearing, or there was weakness in either the distilled water quality or in the step before the rinse. Note that Triton X100 is not easy to rinse, and as the book says, its a very old surfactant and there are much higher performance nonionic surfactants now available and can be used at much lower concentrations and rinse much easier. However, when all is said and done, its "your process". One can only hope that your decisions are well informed with some objective basis; so when you tell others of what you do, there is a reason it sounds good; and the devil is in details.
It is my personal theory that the difference I’ve experienced between distilled and ultra pure water is more a factor of varying quality of supermarket bought distilled water vs the ultra pure water. I think a higher grade water, such as the distilled/deionized water from Whole Foods would probably suffice. I need to invest in a large container and a solid way to dispense from said container if I go that route. I plan to pick up just a couple of gallons to test it out before doing so. I would consider swapping out the Triton for another surfactant. I recently purchased it and it is unopened, so I should be able to return it.
Packaging can cause all kinds of problems. A quick check for distilled/deionized water is put some in a clean glass jar (first 1/2-fill shake and dump), inspect visually - it should be perfectly clear and then do a shake test, if any foams develops, the DIW extracted something from the plastic container; but most are relatively thin translucent HDPE which are generally pretty clean to start. Also let a few drops dry on a 'clean' surface- 1st rinse with the DIW (a mirror is good); there should pretty much be no visible residue. Depending on the # of records you are going to clean and space available you can take the route of producing your DIW - see VII.4.c. For US domestic the recommended nonionic surfactant is Dow Tergitol 15-S-9 (see Chapter IX for details) and you can buy Tergitol 15-S-3 and 15-S-9 Surfactant | TALAS (talasonline.com) - note that Talas has some expensive shipping (may be a COVID thing); it a pint will last you probably for years.
Many people are unaware that the major chemical difference between distilled water and de-ionized water is that the purer the water and the less non-water ions in the water, the more corrosive (or reactive) the water becomes. Water wants to disassociate into ions. It is the ultimate polar solvent. Minor (extremely minor!) impurities in distilled water moderate this corrosive nature. These impurities rarely affect the level of residuals in a record cleaning process, as they are materials tend to be liquids with high vapor pressures, which are miscible in water. They get removed in the same ways water does.
Yes, good point. The iSonic tank instructions recommend not using DI water since, as they say, it can be 'corrosive' I would guess distilled would be a perfectly good substitute.
