Think through your technique. Think through a distilled water rinse using a lint-free pad or cloth. But also look at Disk Doctor one-step non-rinse product.
Wet Cleaning records makes things worse?
Hi guys,
I've been working my way through the record collection I inherited from my Dad - lots of fun and the records are pristine. I usually only need to dust them with a brush and then lightly wipe them off with a microfibre to get the remnants and this seems to work well for 19 out of 20 records.
However, when I come across a record that is particularly dusty I'll wipe it down with Pfan-Stat on a microfibre cloth. It looks clean but when i play it, a little dust ball will build up on the needle rather quickly. Then i need to clean the needle after each song. It seems to only happen when I clean with Pfan-Stat.
Am I doing something wrong? Is the Pfan-Stat just loosening the dust and i need to fully remove it some other way? Is there an inexpensive way to deep clean the records even though they 'look' clean? Would there be a benefit to this?
Thanks!!!
I've been working my way through the record collection I inherited from my Dad - lots of fun and the records are pristine. I usually only need to dust them with a brush and then lightly wipe them off with a microfibre to get the remnants and this seems to work well for 19 out of 20 records.
However, when I come across a record that is particularly dusty I'll wipe it down with Pfan-Stat on a microfibre cloth. It looks clean but when i play it, a little dust ball will build up on the needle rather quickly. Then i need to clean the needle after each song. It seems to only happen when I clean with Pfan-Stat.
Am I doing something wrong? Is the Pfan-Stat just loosening the dust and i need to fully remove it some other way? Is there an inexpensive way to deep clean the records even though they 'look' clean? Would there be a benefit to this?
Thanks!!!
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- 14 posts total
Is this the product? [url]http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/2365478.pdf?_ga=2.251195343.832898279.1529509380-1287413366.152950...[/url] That’s the material data sheet. I’m not a chemist but the ingredients are used as a surfactant (to break surface tension of water to penetrate grooves), detergent and anti-microbial agent (possibly, not just to kill what’s on the record, but to prevent the fluid from spoiling) as well as anti-static agent. I don’t think there’s anything ’wrong’ with the stuff, though I haven’t used it. The issue, to me, from a practical standpoint, is getting it off the record. It is probably gunking your stylus, based on your description of its effects. I’ve usually found that "cleaning" a record that results in worse sound is due to residue of the cleaning agent, mixed with whatever contaminants were on the record originally, that remain and are not removed effectively. Thus, the preference for vacuum (or ultrasonic) cleaning and rinse. Some folks don’t rinse, but I recommend doing so using at a minimum distilled water. Since I assume you are applying this manually and using no vacuum I would use a clean microfibre cloth and distilled water as a rinse step and probably do a couple rinses without immersing the record or getting the label wet. You can find plenty of discussion on the web about how to hand wipe a record without scratching or adding more static. Your best bet if these records are valuable (to you) may be to use one of the various commercial record cleaning services- you ship the record(s) to them, they use a variety of record cleaning devices including vacuum and ultrasonic, at a price per record plus shipping costs. Obviously, if you were going to commit to cleaning records regularly, you could investigate various cleaning machines, including low cost vacuum or DIY ultrasonic (or both), but I assume you don’t want to invest deeply in this. |
sounds like your not doing a good deep clean of the groves. If the record has not been played it can look new but there will be a build up of gunk, mold, etc in the grove that's what your seeing when you play it, its the stylus cleaning the grove not ideal. you need to do a multy step clean, dirty wet- clean wet- clean rinse then dry. I had some old first pressings that had never been played they took multiple passes in that system to get clean. when you do a simple clean all your doing is loosening up the deep seated gunk. ideally a sonic cleaner is best added in that system. |
- 14 posts total