The venerable and vintage Parastat

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by csgreene, Dec 15, 2018.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    These are no longer made but are still available on ebay in various states of condition. It's a record preener that has a brush sandwiched between a couple velour *brushes*. Looks like this:
    [​IMG]

    It was meant to be used with liquid (a water alcohol concoction). Inside the base, there was a foam strip which you applied the liquid and slid the brush back and forth. In time, that would damage the foam strip. Now, I've used one of these (I have two) for over 40 years and periodically clean the bristles and velour. I mist the brush with my 75/25 alcohol solution and lightly (or aggressively)clean a record with this method. On a clean record with some ambient dust, a light approach, rolling the brush from front to back does the trick. But here's something I do (not encouraging others to, simply stating my experience) on dirty records. Mist the brush heavier, dig in a little deeper, and do the process in both directions.

    Why am I mentioning this? Well, the other day, I picked up about 40 records out of some hundreds that a friend had stored in his garage since 1980. He had many good titles but I'm limited in my tastes when it comes to 70's-80's rock and I had any of the titles he had already in my own collection. Most of the records were dusty, finger printed, etc. However, the records underneath looked pretty good and the jackets were all in good shape. I began the task of sink washing some of my selections (I have a Sound Guard mat, brushes, microfiber cloths, and my own distilled water/alcohol mixture with a couple drops of surfactant). Easy enough to do the slow process and then rinse with distilled water and blot dry but, as I say, slow.

    I decided to try a simple turntable cleaning (my table is direct drive) and took a really dirty copy of Synchronicity and plopped it on the table. I sprayed my misting solution on the Parastat using light pressure to remove the surface dust, wiped the brush with a microfiber towel, repsprayed, and dug in as described in the first paragraph going in both directions. Followed up with a few revolutions with my AQ carbon fiber brush. The end result was a quieter record than the whole deep clean sink rinse method I was using on the other albums. I did this again on a few more albums with equally good result.

    All this did was to remind me there are more than one way to skin a cat AKA clean a record if you have a really good brush and the Parastat, IMO, is a really good brush vs. some of the whizbang stuff we have today. I don't know why they ended production but there are plenty out there in the world for fair prices (but in all manner of condition, so beware).

    Some will say I'm destroying a record this way but the largest majority of my collection going back to the 60's (where I'm the original owner) have been cared for with a Parastat and I'd venture to say most are as quiet, considering age, as one could realistically hope. I believe, used correctly, this brush with a water/alcohol solution can deep clean you records as well as most non-vacuuming cleaning machines and maybe just as well too.

    Anyone here know about or continue to use the Parastat as your main record preening device?
     
    Manimal and Gumboo like this.
  2. Bill Hart

    Bill Hart Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin
    Haven't used any of the Cecil Watts' products in decades. The Dust Bug, the Preener and the Parastat. Did you know that he was considered a pioneer of direct to disc recording before WWII? I gather his business was largely with the BBC and after the war, he ran a tea room and sold these accessories. There's a rather fancy book about him, now out of print, and some spoken word audio recordings made by his widow and business partner about his life.
    I suspect you'll find some of his vintage products on e-Bay. I don't know that they were ever re-booted, were they? Monks & Co., on their website, cites Watts as an influence in the development by Percy Wilson of the first automated cleaner. Interesting piece of audio history.
     
    csgreene and McLover like this.
  3. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    I never knew a thing about the company or its background. I just remember that my old boss at the audio shop I worked at in the early 70's used them and told me to get one and use it every time on every side.

    The real message in my initial post was that this device can do a very good job of cleaning a pretty dirty record as well as a spin clean or manual wash with a distilled/RO water rinse, at least in my experience. I didn't expect it could work that well but it does.
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2018
    Gumboo likes this.
  4. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Not something I'd mess with nowadays. The problem with any spray and wipe or "brush and solution" method is that the harder you press down, the more you grind crap into the grooves, having an effect not unlike sandpaper. It's the reason vac-based RCMs were invented decades ago. A couple stores in my area "clean" some of their records this way before putting them out for sale. I've learned to avoid those because they're often damaged in a way RCM cleaning can't fix. I'd rather they just leave the records dusty so I can clean them properly myself.
     
  5. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    Yeah, I hear this but personal experience shows otherwise. Like so many things, the proof is the proof. I've now compared this to other methods and it works. Well, it worked until the internet and audio forums came along... ;) Techinique in this method is everything.

    Not saying an expensive vacuum machine won't work even better but unless one is into vinyl in a serious way (collecting, spending big bucks on tables and carts, endless tinkering to get everything set up just so, and blah, blah, blah, this works *extremely* well. I'm talking, specifically, about the original Parastat, not other brushes on the market currently. It's a different beast.
     
    Gumboo and showtaper like this.
  6. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    My vac machine cost less than $200. I tried other methods over the years and none of them worked as well. The cost per use on the RCM is very low.
     
  7. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.

    These things are so old I wouldn't use them even if they were effective. I did use an original Discwasher with fluid for many years and those records are fine. Gentle use on fairly clean records probably won't do much damage. However there are far better products available today. Cecil Watts products disappeared by the mid 70s so these are really old.
     
  8. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    Oh, I am aware of how old they are and they work wonderfully 40 years ago just as they work wonderfully today if you’ve maintained. But I didn’t think many people on this site would appreciate them but they work far better than a couple of you have given them credit for.
     
    Gumboo likes this.
  9. 62vauxhall

    62vauxhall Forum Resident

    I bought several Watt's products in the 1970's including that Parastat and a kit called HiFi Parastat, also the Preener and 3 or 4 Dustbugs. Still have them all and was looking at them today because I happened to be condensing my turntable stuff into fewer containers.

    Using Watts devices was more labor intensive than the newfangled Discwasher brush but they did a better job. All I remember machine wise from back then were Monk's that cost hundreds of dollars so reality dictated how I cleaned records. Vac-O-Rec didn't cut it for me - still have that too come to thinks about it. The fact that Watts was in the record care business for quite some time before the 1970's made me confident it was the best I was going to get. And, since it was a UK company(and who is more anal about record care than the Brits) I used them successfully for many years.

    But not since I got a Spin Clean.

    I knew two brothers back then who were born and raised in Scotland during the 50's & 60's along with their sister. Together the three of them bought lots of rock & roll on 45's but when the brothers emigrated, sister stayed and so did the records. Every couple of years or so the brothers would go back for a visit. Once was in 1977 and they brought back with them all of those 45's - there were over three hundred.

    They said that they wanted to record them onto cassette and not realizing how many there were when the subject came up, therefore what I was getting myself into, I volunteered to for the job. When I actually saw them en masse, I explained I'd make good on my word but it would not be quick.

    Using the brush from that HiFi Parastat kit and distilled water, the chore took a couple of months. The grime from that "cleaning binge" is still visible on the edge of the brush to this day. Those records were absolutely filthy.

    There was a band getting attention in Britain at that time called The Sex Pistols. Sister bought the Bollocks LP when it came out to give to her brothers. It blew me away, they hated it and told me to keep it.

    I guess that was my fee.
     
    patient_ot and Gumboo like this.
  10. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    The brushes are easily cleaned.
     
  11. Gumboo

    Gumboo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Metry, Louisiana
    Currently using the brush portion of the Parastat as a wash brush for my wet vac machine.

    Cecil Watts' knowledge and his cleaning devices were a revelation for me in the early 70s. I had the Preener and Parastat. I even had his booklet, with the dark blue and silver or gray cover. I think I still have it around here somewhere. I was buying new vinyl back then so had no need for deep cleaning, only surface dust as necessary.
     
  12. monte4

    monte4 Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario Canada
    I also used both the Dust Bug and the Parastat back in the '70's on my Dual turntables. Nobody else I knew even cleaned their records :rolleyes:. I think this was the start of any type of record cleaning equipment that actually did anything other than scratch the records.
     
  13. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    Cecil E. Watts book on "Record Care and Maintenance" was given to me when I bought my first good turntable. I have strived to follow it's advice ever since, it's paid dividends in quieter record surfaces, better record reproduction, better record and stylus lifespan. Mr. Watts was a visionary and expert on all aspects of record reproduction, recording, and record care, and over 30 years ahead of his time.
     
    csgreene and Bill Hart like this.
  14. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    I was expressing surprise that something used for 40 years and more still performs anywhere near it's design spec. Now if there is NOS that hasn't gone mouldy that would be interesting. I did have a Dust Bug but not the Parastat.
     
  15. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Funny story about the Dust Bug and similar dust-bug like devices. When I bought my JVC, it had one mounted on the plinth by the previous owner. I don't like these things because you can hear them on the record, and the little brush on the end was pretty dirty. I tried to pull it off many times and it didn't budge. 30-40 years of adhesive and the thing was on there and not coming off. Then recently I got tired of looking at it so I pushed horizontally on it instead of trying to pull up on it or move it back and forth. Whaddaya know? The thing came off. Promptly went in the trash.
     
  16. csgreene

    csgreene Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Idaho, USA
    FWIW, the Parastat system of brushes are easy to maintain and keep clean. I recently came across a NOS one online and bought it. Mine looked the same as new sans the foam strip in the handle which I learned to not use after a bout a year. I never used the brush dry but rather gave it a light mist of 75% distilled water and 25% high test iso.

    My real point was that I tried it on some pretty sorry looking records I bought recently and was amazed how well it worked to give them a rather deep cleaning. Technique outlined earlier in the thread. Understand, I'm not making a recommendation to those who use manual or auto RCMs, just that I was surprised at how well it worked instead of the method I've normally used (which would be comparable to a spin clean). Obviously, you clean the brush between sides with a few good wipes of a microfiber cloth.

    I still follow up with the AQCF brush as the final stage as well as a brush of the stylus before and after each side.
     
  17. TarnishedEars

    TarnishedEars Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Seattle area
    Personally I think that the much maligned diskwasher brushes worked very well when used correctly too. These were not equivalent to an RCM by any means. But I always thought that this system worked better than the much more popular carbon fiber brushes.
     
  18. 62vauxhall

    62vauxhall Forum Resident

    In my teens and twenties, the kind of foriegn matter on the record dictated what cleaning device I'd use.

    Parastat was "heavy duty" so it was for dealing with dried liquids (beer, mixer etc), grease & grime from fingers gripping the playing surface or any other form of encrustation.

    Discwasher (dampened) for serious dust. Like nude LP's left on the coffee table for days or those that stayed endlessly on the turntable with the lid up.

    Carbon fiber brush for when a record is basically clean but attracted a stray bit of lint, fiber or a hair - pet / head / otherwise.
     
  19. 911s55

    911s55 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wa state
    Age has nothin to do with a product working or not unless it's worn out. I have one of these, just using the center brush for wet scrubbin'.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine