Deep Cleaning Records With Steam?

Distilled water will not boil? Please explain where you live because it's been boiling at my house for decades.

I use a shark steamer bought for $10 on eBay on every record I clean. It is a must for me. I use the same expensive water that comes with the Walker or any other cleaning system. I even use the steam on mega expensive Tom Port hot stampers. Here is the clincher...I hold the steamer less than an inch from the vinyl... most records will go into a wild warping motion as you steam them...steam them from the outer lp edge toward the center of the record, it takes maybe 7 or 8 long seconds as you get to the inner grooves slow down...the record will begin to flatten out and stabilize. I even use this to remove record warps. It takes some balls to do this on a $600 or $700 record! I use the enzyme based cleaner first, then strong cleaner, then steam, then rrl super deep and finish with the rrl wash.

Onhwy61, Decades is a long time to boil water. You must be watching it.
In order for water to boil it must have impurities in it. It will get as hot as boiling water. And if anything is inserted into it can explode and injure someone. Your water must have impurities.

Rwwear, you are misinformed. Distilled water will boil when subjected to a sufficient amount of constant heat. Impurities can alter by a small amount the exact temperature at which boiling occurs, but even the purest of pure distilled water will boil. Your statement that distilled water will not boil is incorrect.

www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/aprilholladay/2004-03-11-wonderquest_x.htm - 62k

Aiken heated water to 244 degrees Fahrenheit (118 degrees Celsius) before it exploded.

How did he do it? Bohren gives a recipe: a vessel with smooth sides (a glass flask, for example), really clean water, and ridding as much dissolved air as possible.

"Preparing ultra clean water is a heroic task," says Bohren, who finds ordinary distilled water "intolerably filthy". Many years ago during light-scattering experiments, he had to doubly distill the water and pass it through micropore filters before he could use it.

Those are essential ingredients to a successful boiling-at-high-temperatures explosion. Be careful. [Editor's note: Again, don't try this at home.]

For more on bubble growth in water, please read pages 83 through 90 in Craig Bohren's wonderful book, What Light through Yonder Window Breaks?