The Analog Vinyl Alternative Wash Down Thread

Yes, the water is getting into the grooves, no doubt in my mind.

Looks like a pretty good method. I have an Okki Nokki, not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, so I think I will continue to use that. I do like dish soap though, will probably switch to that when my record cleaning fluids run out. Those are just too expensive and I think the dish soap does a fine enough job especially when one buys records that are in pretty good shape to begin with.

But why is Dawn the product everyone automatically chooses? Marketing? They've done a good job of that. We used Dawn once before. Vile, synthetic smelling fragrance. Most things that I use now are the all natural products. I quite like Seventh Generation. Dish soap I have not moved over to an all natural product, yet. I use Ultra Sunlight with Oxi-Action. Has a mild and pretty normal lemon fragrance. I suspect any dish soap would work well for cleaning records.

 

I bought a 2L jug of Dawn recently, my first ever purchase of it. I agree with you on the smell....vile stuff, but I'm stuck with it for the next little while. I'm sticking with Sunlight from here on.

Dish soap is not ideal for records because it uses an anionic surfactant that can leave a record prone to static buildup. As I mentioned in my post above, 2-in-1 shampoo is a better alternative as an off-the-shelf product. Leaves the record shiny and manageable, too lol.

 

My thinking has always been that whatever is lurking within the groove as far as dirty liquid from a cleaning will probably contact rinse water to some degree as it cruises the surface, some leaching out and some leaching back in.
But I would agree that a strong pressured stream from a tap will probably leach a lot out of a groove.

 

It works great, but still trying to find the optimal spacing for records of all thicknesses.

As it is, 180gm records dry both sides perfectly, but thinner ones don't dry 100% on the back side, so I flip them around and spin them once more.

I'm trying to find slightly thicker velvet pads which should do the trick. Still works great though

 

Well, best way for me to prove the results are to show you a record that had foul nasty water from a leak sit on it and dry for over one year. Record before clean, and record after clean, just does not get any better than this.









If this is not clean, I don't know what is!

 

I could point out a few things, tips. As I am the inventor of dish soap / sink record cleaning. That is correct, I was the very first person to ever give instructions on this method on the internet more than 20 years ago. The rinse you show above should be actually be done first before you do anything, before it goes on any clean towel - in order to get the loose dirt and dust off of it before it has contaminated that towel.

The cross-contamination of the towel and other tools is what is wrong with most cleaning advice given out.

The problem with the paintbrush is that it misses the tiny hard specks of crud that I sometimes find in old records. I call this the "potato chip" factor. The only way to find these little hard rock like pieces of junk is to use your hand with soap and then you can feel them. Then you use your fingernail and drag it over that speck in the direction of the grooves and you manually dislodge it. One must use your soft hands like a squeegee over the record surface. It pushes the water into the grooves and helps discover those bits that do not dislodge with just the soap. Cleaning machines do not find these bits either. One would not want to use a wire brush would they!

The label protector is useful for certian types of labels, others do not need it.

 

You do not show us an after picture of the same angle and distance. For all we know this is not even the same LP in the first two vs the last pic. We need another comparable picture here.

 

Haah... I love that. !
What is it??

 

Honestly Jeff, I would just rather you NOT believe me, rather than me prove to you it's the same record, it took me about five different tries to get the picture of the clean record that was not blurred. I really have no reason to post fake clean record pics in order to save you hundreds of dollars promoting a manual cleaning method that has worked for me for many years. I would much rather you just believe I have a hidden agenda here and believe I am posting fake clean record pics and go out and spend $800.00 on a record cleaning machine, that would be your best bet! Jeff, how about this one, it looks perfect, only $1,500.00.

VPI MW 1 Cyclone Record Cleaning Machine-Audio Advisor