Deep Cleaning Records With Steam?

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?

Rwwear, your original statement was distilled water will not boil. The article you quote describes a procedure for superheating water. The key elements to superheating being the removal of all air pockets within the water, using a very smooth surfaced container and keeping the water motionless while heating. All these factors lead to the suppression of bubbles formation. Superheating is a process where the boiling point is raised, but it still boils (if only explosively).

Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

A popular myth about distilled water is that it has the dangerous property of being more easily heated above its normal boiling point without actually boiling (as seen in Mythbusters) in a process known as superheating. When superheated water is disturbed or has impurities added to it, a nucleation center for bubbles form. These bubbles are then new nucleation centers, and a sudden, explosive boiling can occur, possibly causing serious injury to those nearby. However, distilled water and tap water do not differ in their ease of or danger in being superheated. The dissolved impurities in motionless tap water do not present enough disturbance to inhibit superheating.

If you really believe distilled water will not boil, then secure some distilled water and heat it in a normal pan on a stovetop at high heat. Ultimately, who will you believe - some article in USA Today or your own eyes?

I concede that I was mistaken although it does take higher temps to make it boil and it can be explosive.

I've used a Black and Decker steam cleaner on records with problem spots. I had no problems with warpage. You would have to apply the steam for a very long time to actually heat the vinyl enough to have any sort of problem. I have done this as an experiment, but do not use it regularly because it is NOT very practical (requires way too much effort).

Get a decent wet cleaning/vacuum machine. A very basic model is fine and reasonably priced.