Carbon Fiber Brush with Milty Gun?

Thanks all for your posts. And really interesting to see these directions, which are so much more extensive than the ones that came with mine. Interesting that they think it is best not to shoot the record on the turntable!

Indeed Margot, I would think the ion "stream" would find the platter spindle to be the most attractive target.

By way of illustration, if you examined an open-reel tape deck rewinding a tape, in complete darkness, you would see very fine miniature "lightnings" i.e. continuous thin filaments of electrical energy literally crawling all over the reels and tape heading for the grounded hub. Same sort of thing as you'd see in a Van der Graaf generator.
If the gun were close enough it would probably produce a spark.

Don't want to think of what this zapper gun might do to a phono cartridge, either....

There is no aspect of the vinyl ritual about which I can't learn something new. Yes, I think you're supposed to zap the LP before mounting it on the platter, but I never bother to do that. So, if the spindle is soaking up ions, perhaps I am achieving nothing. Occasionally, you can hear a crackle through the speaker, if the gun is held too close to the cartridge (which happened to me just last night). But I perceive no evidence that the cartridge can be damaged by the gun.

If I can find the reference to support the notion that the gun should be held away from the LP surface whilst releasing the trigger, at the end of the de-static process, I will post it here. Suffice to say I did not make it up off the top of my head, but that does not make it right, necessarily.

07-24-15: Lewm
If I can find the reference to support the notion that the gun should be held away from the LP surface whilst releasing the trigger, at the end of the de-static process, I will post it here. Suffice to say I did not make it up off the top of my head....

If I recall correctly, that was recommended in the instructions that came with the original Discwasher version of the Zerostat, ca. 1980. The theory apparently was that it is best to conclude the process with a spray of positive ions, rather than negative ions. I have no idea as to the validity of that theory, but FWIW I've always done it that way.

07-24-15: Moonglum
Indeed Margot, I would think the ion "stream" would find the platter spindle to be the most attractive target.

I've always performed the process on the turntable. However, as I indicated in one of Margot's other threads, I do not follow the instructions that were cited above of zapping from a position centered above the spindle, at a distance of about 12 inches. Instead, as some of the others indicated they also do I zap from three different locations, trisecting the record, with those locations being around the middle of the groove area. In other words, closer to the outer edge of the record than to the spindle. And I do that from a distance of about 6 or 7 inches. I would expect that protocol to minimize any perturbations the spindle may inflict on the ion stream. Also, at each of the three locations I squeeze and release the trigger three times (with the final release being done with the gun aimed elsewhere).

Regarding the original question, I rarely use a brush. Just my Nitty Gritty cleaning machine on occasion, good quality Mobile Fidelity record sleeves, and LAST stylus cleaner carefully applied to the tip of the stylus (using a small flashlight to assure adequate visibility) before and after playing each side of a record.

Best regards,
-- Al