Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records

My name is Ryan, actually I really appreciate your response, because I feel there are times on these forums where once a discussion comes into debate, many can have the reaction of either self-defense, or using a tone that implies the conversation is without merit.

Even though I'm happy with my record cleaning process, I'm personally always curious and open to modifications or adjustments that could potentially improve upon that process. I'll definitely have MrM on my radar of things to research, once my current bottle of triton x100 is all used up! (Which at this rate, may take quite awhile)

My only follow up for you would be what other surfactants were you able to compare to? Otherwise, thank you for sharing your experience in this thread.

 

Thank you, Phil. You’ve hit the nail on the head. Religion is a wonderful thing but when it comes to record cleaning, I prefer science. Scientists disagree, of course, and that’s good because otherwise science would not advance. When such disagreement occurs the dispute is, or should be, resolved by experiment to determine which of the conflicting hypotheses best fits the facts.

I conducted a simple experiment to compare the effectiveness of various cleaning agents at room temperature, with MrM coming out best and mild surfactants shown to be of limited effectiveness. I then conducted another experiment to confirm the prediction of the plastics compatibility tables that Mr M should be safe with vinyl records. The findings of these experiments, as I have reported them, are facts. My conclusion that cleaning with Mr Muscle oven cleaner is the most effective cleaning method known to be safe, is only my opinion based on the evidence as I see it. I am happy for it to be challenged and would not expect otherwise as it is somewhat revolutionary, to say the least! One good thing about my safety experiment is that it is simple and can be repeated with whatever cleaning method you wish to test.

I have little doubt that an ultrasonic cleaner is highly effective at cleaning records. But there is a question regarding safety. It would be great if someone could repeat my safety experiment with half the record being ultrasonically cleaned for 24 hours at the recommended power and frequency settings, with the other half just given a quick clean. That would resolve the safety question, to my satisfaction at least.

I see no reason to dispute that Tergitol-type surfactants are safe and are effective at removing dirt from flat surfaces when applied with a cloth or brush. That ultrasonic cleaning is reported significantly to improve the sound quality of records previously cleaned with Tergitol-type detergents, raises a question regarding effectiveness at removing deposits within the grooves. This is a challenge for the advocates of this type of cleaning method.

 

Thank you, Ryan. Much appreciated. My first experiment was what I call a "quick and dirty". I describe it in more detail further up the thread. I simply tried to remove the dirt from the top of my kitchen cupboards, which had a acquired a sticky film of dust and grease. I tried washing-up liquid (neat and diluted), various solvents (IPA, meths, white spirit) and Mr Muscle. The Mr M was a clear winner. It was the only one that actually removed the muck as opposed to merely smearing it around.

 

@AudioAddict,

Interesting. However, a hydrocarbon lubricant such as paraffin-wax that is often addressed as the lubricant used to assist with the PVC/PVA flow and mold release, if on the surface can have a number of effects, but of the ones I can think of, all lead to noise.

1. It can fill-in the side-wall grooves 'attenuating' high frequency info.
2. I could electrically insulate the record making it more prone to building up static causing noise
3. It could trap particulate causing noise.

However, in Section X of my paper, I do discuss that RCA had a formula for an anti-static compound that was internal and would migrate to the surface where it would form a micro-layer of water that changed the record to electrically dissipative to reduce static buildup, but dependent on ambient humidity.

 

@recstar24 & @ChrisWoo,

Couple of items to note, my paper recommends the use of Dow Tergitol 15-S-9 as a final cleaner only. This simple nonionic detergent is not adequate to clean any heavily soiled or exceptionally dirty records (as I have defined Section IV). For records that show dirt, I recommend a much broader based industrial detergent Alconox Liquinox; and its effectiveness is very dependent on the brush application as addressed Section V with the applicable rationale addressed in Section XI. The concept I address in the paper is is the same one I approved to clean Navy high pressure oxygen systems which is the same basic process used by the majority of the precision cleaning industry - Pre-Clean, Rinse, Final Clean Rinse, Dry. Personally, I pre-clean/final clean all my records, and that recommendation is addressed in the paper. I also stress that too much cleaner is worse than too little since residue will be left behind. Otherwise, I am not a scientist - just an engineer.

Stay Well,
Neil

 

I find the image of a hair interesting. Usually we are lead to believe that grooves are less than a 10th of the width of a human hair, but if I understand the measurements here a hair is just barely larger than a grooves width. Is this correct?

 

One argument is that removing plasticizes will make the plastic more brittle and prone to long term wear, rather than damaging the grooves directly.
I appreciate the fact that you tried the experiment as that is much more than most would do here, but it is not conclusive on all fronts. There are too many factors and points of method omitted in your description that we cant tell how accurate it is. Your main tool (your daughter) is nothing that we ourselves can use and as an example to show why young ears arnt fool proof Ill use myself, because it took many years until I was able to spot distortions like IGD and sibilance related to my home experience, but that had nothing to do with my hearing improving, just my listening.
The most I would say is that your experiment shows there is indeed no severe directly audible degradation of sound quality.

 

You are correct, the width of a hair is 50-70 microns, and the nominal width of the V-groove at the top is reported as 56 microns, so they are almost equal. But, the groove side-wall ridge spacing can be 1/5 of the human hair, and the V-groove at the bottom is 1/10 of a human hair.

Neil

 

Neil:
How about Goat's hair. Use this on my cleaning brushes and wonder if it is any better at cleaning the v-groove.

 

It makes sense because one time a hair got stuck in the groove. The music was all muffled and undefined, looked closely and found the long strand where I liften the stylus. Couldnt get it out with air, it was stuck in, so I had to use my stylus brush.
This has only happened once to me.

 

Neil: Checked on the internet and the goat hair size appears to be substantially smaller, around 12-16 pm. Again, wonder if this would improve groove cleaning. Use both wet goats hair brushes for RCM cleaning and a dry brush for before play. They appear to be working better than the graphite, non-static brushes.

 

I will not dispute the goat hair diameter, although this info from the FBI may challenge it Forensic Science Communications - July 2004 ., and Wikipedia shows Mohair as 25-40 microns, but there are many types of goat hair. But in Section VI of the paper, I was pretty clear that there is risk with the carbon anti-static brushes of doing more harm than good if used incorrectly. Otherwise, for the goat hair brush, the diameter should penetrate at least way part way down into groove. As long as the bristles are flexible the tips will not shear and possibly leave more debris than they are removing. Otherwise, as I say in the paper Section VI, I no longer use any brushes - just a quick swipe of the anti-static cloth to remove surface lint identified with UV light. And, for wet cleaning, the Record Doctor nylon brush I use in Section V and discuss in Section XI does not penetrate the groove, is only helps to develop agitation and cavitation to let the fluid do the cleaning. My position/opinion is to avoid brushes that get into the groove to minimize risk of harm. In my mind, its all about preserving those very fine side wall grooves. If the brush penetrates the grooves when dry, it will only wipe one side of the side-wall groove, depositing debris on the other side or forcing debris deeper into the V-groove. But, this is just theory based on the SEM closeups of the groove and especially the 1000X that has the hyperlink to view.

Stay Well,
Neil

 

I have an Emory Cook 10" test LP from 1954 states : exposing vinyl to sudden temperature changes can increase the THD to as high as 6 percent.
In regards to the safety of the Mr. muscle oven cleaner to the vinyl formula. LP records are not pure PVC. Vinyl acetate account for 14 percent of the mix. I myself have thought to use oven cleaner previously to salvage discs obtained used that may have had a few paint specs that went unseen. Never have gotten the nerve to try the oven cleaner on a previously cleaned but still noisy Lp yet.

 

Seems logical, I dont use brushes for the records either, besides the wet cleaning part.
I did buy a record brush just to try its effectiveness but I never got it to work like I wanted to and the bristles actually did make visible marks when swiping anything other than tangentially to the groove. I may have had a bad brush however.

There is one thing Ive been wondering about though. Do you think adding water to the equation of brushes makes things more gentle? The water should act as a sort of buffer at least in my mind.
What do you think?

 

The corrosion table I used lists both hard and soft PVC (in German). Hard is uPVC and soft has vinyl acetate and other ingredients as plasticisers. According to the table, both are unaffected by caustic soda (lye) at any concentration at room temperature.

Whether or not my experiment confirms this, I leave others to judge. I am happy with the result, especially as 24 hours exposure to MrM is massive overkill cf. the 5-10 minutes to clean the record. I have used MrMuscle for several years now because I found it so effective and easy to use. No degradation whatsoever. I am not surprised people are sceptical. All other cleaning approaches start from the assumption that records are fragile things. They are to mechanical damage but not to inorganic chemicals such as caustic. If you doubt my experiment why not do it yourself? One experiment is worth a thousand opinions.

 

I agree that IGD and sibilance are difficult to spot by the untutored ear. But if you play a record that is half sibilant/distorted and the other half good, so that it goes from bad to good every revolution, even an untutored ear can tell the difference. This is why this test is objective and not subjective, and so sensitive. The sound is either bad or good, like a red/green traffic light. If you can't hear the difference, it ain't there.

 

DIW can provide some benefit - the thin moisture layer (that will evaporate quickly) will temporarily make the record electrically dissipative reducing static. But if the brush is not clean, then the periodic wetting of the brush will cause the clean DIW to become for all intense and purposes - muddy; the water can pickup particulate from the brush and this is now left on the record. When the DIW evaporates, whatever is non-volatile in the DIW will be on the record. The theory of the pad is that the leading applies the DIW and leaving edge dries it. But, that whole theory comes apart if the brush is used too long (and besides being dirty, looses its ability to wet). The Mobile Fidelity brush has replacement pads, and they say to replaced periodically, and with the rubber support the entire pad/brush can be periodically rinsed - the 3M adhesive they use for the pad is good quality.

Water will soften the brush if the brush absorbs the water. Nylon will absorb water, but the application time if using to just brush before use is unlikely to be sufficient time to soften. But for nylon or most synthetics, if the brush is not wet with DIW, you risk the brush creating static on the record. Not sure of natural fibers such a goat hair, many hairs have natural oils that tend to repel water, but wet with paint quickly (makes for good paint brushes); and should pickup particulate - but now the brush is dirty, and for natural hair brushes there can be issues with how rugged is the hair shaft, does it sluff debris. Take look at that NASA report that I reference in Section VI (the hyperlink is in List of References at the end); and see the level of effort they took to find a brush. By the way, the Zephyr fingerprint brush is inexpensive (<$20) and is great for dusting the turntable - I do not use it for record cleaning because of the fiberglass fibers.

 

Yes but again there is a lack of information. I dont assume the degredation heard would be distortions like sibilance, rather an increased noisefloor. Given this we would prefer to use a record with no music at all, completely silent grooves to see if there is a change. Music would just get in the way of showing this and make the red vs green difference much mire hazy and unclear, not as binary if you will.
Just like how loud music covers up normal crackles or noise, Im sure you understand.
So what kind of record did you use?

And again, it would be interesting to see the long term effects as well as that is a main argument against strong chemical solutions like alcohol.
Playing 2 equal records and recording tge first vs 100th play to see if the treated shows a difference in wear resistance.

 

@ChrisWoo, as I previously addressed, the issue with Mr Muscle is not the alkaline constituent, but everything else that's in it. As I previously stated I have found at least two very different formulas for Mr Muscle - one a non-caustic : SC Johnson , the other a caustic based on NaOH

: SC Johnson . SCJohnson identifies these with a specific formula numbers. But, this is all OBE, because SCJohnson no longer manufacturers Mr Muscle Oven Cleaner in any market Select Country : SC Johnson , and for USA, if you check CPID , Mr Muscle was in the USA, but sold under the name Diversey who then has sold the formula under various names. Whatever is currently on the market is likely old stock. This all highlights an issue I addressed in my paper regarding the risk of using household products - you never really know what's in it, the formulas change, the companies are sold, the quality is a gamble.

But, if it is your 'professional' opinion that in general household 'oven cleaner' is a valid record cleaning agent - maybe you should start your own post Use of Oven Cleaner for Records. Address the product ingredients and how they are all compatible and use your test results as the basis of your recommendation, and let the community question you and debate if they wish. Otherwise, I have no reservations in what I have recommended. The products are known, they are industrial products from stable suppliers who supply the precision cleaning industry, and are very sensitive to product formulation and safety, environmental regulations and the quality necessary to get repeatable results across many users. ​

 

I agree and thanks for clarifying. I did see the Nasa brush part, quite arduous work for a brush.

I think my Okkis pads are nylon anyway and it certainly feels like non wet pads/brushes would create lots more friction and wear as opposed to when they are soaked which is what I meant by buffer. I never dared trying to vacuum dry though.

 

im having a hard time finding that link/article to brushes? The only ones referenced in your article are carbon fiber and thunderon

 

same question as above, I’m having a hard time finding that part in the article?

 

Neil: You are quickly becoming Mr. “GoTo” in this area and a BIG, genuine thank you for your skill and response.
AND you will remember that hoary phrase “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” because you will get all sorts of onsite reactions. Know that we support you...
SO...
Let's talk RR = resurrection, renewal, or revival rate. The percentage of records brought back from the dead.
We assume you have gone down to the local thrift store, pored over many albums and purchased 140 candidates. You bring them home and 20 are perfect and require nothing; another 20 are DOA and get trashed. This leaves 100 “maybes” that require cleaning to become listenable.
We'll assume that listenable means you can concentrate mostly on the music and not get overwhelmed with surface noise, pops, or any other defects. Further, we'll assume that you have a high-end turntable and quality stylus that contribute to a high level of noise reduction.
Have done this with 300 hundred “maybe” records (so far) weeded from a large collection and can report this RR: 40%. The cleaning method is: a surfactant cleaner applied with a goat's hair wet brush, both directions, followed by vacuuming, both directions, then repeat with a distilled water rinse using a second goat's hair brush, vacuuming, then 10 or so minutes in a drying rack. Fairly standard method developed largely from info on this site.
OF COURSE the RR is approximate because the records you select are different than mine and all sorts of metric variants apply. We're talking generalities here.
SO(2)...
Do you have a RR for the manual method you employ? Do a high percentage become listenable? Would love to know as well as to hear from others on this site concerning their RR.

 

I recall it but not exactly where, sorry.

 

I am sorry if I have hijacked your thread. It was never my intention and I simply thought that, as the thread was about record cleaning, I could add my suggestion. I promise this will be my last posting.

As things stand, I have no reason to doubt that mild surfactants, as you suggest, are safe but the evidence from the improved results from ultrasonics indicates that they are not effective at removing stubborn dirt from within the grooves. There is a question mark, however, over the safety of ultrasonics (which could be answered by a simple experiment like mine).

Of course, more experiments could be done on the safety Mr Muscle but the result of mine is so conclusive that I have no doubt that they would merely reinforce my conclusion. I do not know whether Mr M is as good at cleaning records as ultrasonics but my kitchen cupboard experiment says it is highly effective. After all, it is designed to clean ovens.

Of course, I don’t expect people to throw out their expensive record cleaning machines and switch to MrM! Or to replace laborious hand-cleaning methods with a simple wipe, brush and rinse with MrM. All I wanted to do is to say that there are alternatives and to back my opinion with some findings from experiments.