WD 40 to clean vinyl???

How about the hard plastic hair brush that would scratch the hell out of vinyl.

 

You can say that again.

Seems that there's just enough general willingness to believe in 'magic' tweaks, that common sense and BS filters sometmes get turned off.

 

What? You did this to recording tape of your own? I don't think so.

 

No but others on the tape forum I'm a member of have done.

 

ABSOLUTELY! This point cannot be reiterated enough.

Not only is it likely to damage whatever it is intended to help (usually switches and pots) via solvent activity, it can also be a genuine safety hazard. I have been involved in pinball as a hobby for some time, and have known of several collectible machines which were destroyed by fire resulting from WD40 use. In all cases the WD40 was used to lubricate a mechanical assembly. There are a LOT of exposed leaf switches in a pinball, and in older games they are passing several amps, which frequently leads to a spark when they close. When the spark comes into contact with naphtha (and other flammable solvent) vapors from evaporated WD40, KABOOM! (There has even been one poor guy whose pubic hair was singed when this happened to his game - the explosion was strong enough to force licks of flame through the various slots and holes in the coin door, which just happen to be in the ideal strategic location to really hurt an adult dude of average height!)

 

No they haven't - at least not successfully. It's impossible. WD-40 contains solvents that will cause recording tape to deteriorate. Turn on your BS detector. Any residue will also coat capstans, rollers, guides and seep down into bearings and ruin their lubrication as well.

Who dreams up this stuff? I mean, do people read those sorts of posts and then actually take the 'advice' and do it to their own tapes? Posts of that kind are nothing less than attempts at remote vandalism.

 

NO. That's all, just NO. I've been cleaning vintage recordings since 1998. Cylinders, acetates, shellacs, you name it. I've tried literally everything. Goo Gone, Lighter Fluid, WD-40, acetone, Rain-X, you name it. And I always come back to alcohol for vinyl, and ammonia for everything else.

 

Another thread unfolding in a dystopian parallel universe where, for some bizarre reason, no one is selling or buying reasonably priced, purpose-built vinyl cleaning fluid, conveniently formulated by someone who actually knows what they’re doing, with a sophisticated awareness of the potential damage to stylus, cartridge, and the record itself, and all of these products having been tested and evaluated by competent reviewers and customers.

Instead, there’s the irresistible lure of the urge to concoct MacGyver-like record-cleaning solutions out of ordinary household chemicals and cleaners before the bad guys who kidnapped Cindy can get away with the smuggled arms shipment in their stolen helicopter.

 

A lot of people use WD40 to lubricate the cylinder of a lock, where the key will not slide in and out.

It does work, only two problems, 1) The sticky oily substance that remains will attract dirt and gunk up the lock. 2) the oily substance will evaporate over time to a thick coating of goo.



No real locksmith would use WD40 on a lock, for the above mentioned reasons. They all use powdered graphite.

This is an experiment spray a little puddle of WD40 in a unused corner of a cement garage floor. come back and evaluate it in 6-months, tell us what you find.

Would imagine it would do a very good job of eliminating the rice krispies from your records.

 

I know people that have used it for arthritis and similar in their knee joints. No ****. Spray it on, they claim it works, where their meds will not.

 

Coating a record with a lubricant might not be quite as crazy as it sounds at first - RCA's CED videodiscs were coated with a silicone lubricant, for example. But WD-40? Er, no. You'd want a lubricant that cannot evaporate, but also one that could be easily removed without damaging the disc, because it's going to eventually get gunked up with dust and other contaminants.

 

RCA CED's are about how truly awful technology can be and therefore not a good example how anything should be done.

 

I haven't listened to vinyl in years. I still have most of the vinyl from years ago but the collection isn't in the best of shape. Some albums are slightly water damaged and being stored over my garage for over 20 years has been good either. I recently broke out my old Yamaha TT and tried playing a few albums. Needless to say the ones I played were a bit warped and a lot of popping. So the albums were packed back up as was the TT.

With that said I can't believe anyone would even remotely consider cleaning their vinyl with WD40. I've used WD40 quite a bit over the years to loosen up rusted hardware. I always try to use it in a well ventilated area as the strong smell makes it obvious that the chemicals in it are quite strong. Use to clean vinyl? Are you flippin' nuts ! I have a few CDs with fingerprints and I've heard Easy Off oven cleaner works great .

 

Well, they "had issues" (heh), but they were a remarkable example of what could be done with an electromechanical format evolved from the venerable vinyl record. Anyhow, the lubricant was actually essential to their operation.

 

I imagine that it was...

It has been said that "lubrication is the secret to success"

 

It's not a lubricant, just the reverse.

 

It's good for freeing up rusty bolts and stopping door hinges from squeaking. That's about it.

 

Never even heard of this one. Pretty cool. I found a video. Look at where these guys are playing with the machine. A junkyard? It's perfect. But I don't think I want to be watching Terms of Endearment during the Post-Apocalypse.

 

I did so out of desperation. As some of you may have seen on another thread of mine, i have a 180g MFSL copy of Lennon's POB which has been driving me crazy. I tried all sorts of cleaning methods within my capabilities but nothing could rid of all those crackles and pops.

...so I very cautiously proceeded with my first WD-40 adventure. I basically dripped a bit of the stuff on a micro-fiber cloth and rubbed along the vinyl surface in the 'correct" motion, following the groove path, etc. I thin took a T-shirt and wiped off as much of the "stuff" as I could till i saw that no more was coming off at that point in time. I let the album sit out overnight. Upon returning home from work earlier, i held it under a bright light to see that even more of it-most-had evaporated. I gave one more nice wipe. I VERY lightly ran my finger across a small portion of the vinyl to see if all the 'film" was gone, which it was. I put it on. i can very honestly say that about 90% of the surface noise had disappeared.

I don't plan on doing this again but I had to try this once woth an album that was driving me up a wall. This method, while seems to work, requires LOTS of time, patience and care or else you could end up doing lots of damage on numerous levels.

That's it. Done.

 

Thank you for taking one for the team, DK Pete!

 

LOL...I only recommend it when all else fails and you gotta get that one album sounding right.

 

Techmoan did a good overview of the RCA Videodisc system:

 

I did...i couldn't resist...read my OP which was combined with this thread from another.

 

I wonder what the exact silicone lubricant was RCA used on their videodiscs, and if that could be used to rescue records in bad shape.

 

There's those dvd/ blu ray high speed buffing machines to get rid of scratches etc works with cds as well. What about a LP version ..and demand for larger machine version ?