Deep Cleaning Records With Steam?

Crem1 - I was trained as a bacteriologist, did graduate work in microbiology and have been employed as a microbiologist. I'll be following this development with great interest!

What's the current consensus as to the duration one should pull the trigger on the steamer? 5 sec, 10, 15? i.e. what gives sufficient cleaning without damaging the LP? Tks!

John

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John of Sunnyvale...
I don't know what the concensus is, only what I've been doing. It probably takes me in the neighborhood of 10-15 seconds to steam one side of a 33 1/3 LP. I start near the center using a Tupperware-type lid to protect the inner label and go round and round toward the outside, stopping only momentarily to get past my finger that I'm using to hold down the lid. I'm still experimenting but quite often I'll steam several times per side (i.e., in between applications of cleaning solutions) followed by vacuuming. I also steam as a final "rinse" and vacuum to dry. It's a pain and may take 15-20 minutes or so to do a side. This fairly aggressive use of steam hasn't caused any damage that I can discern and some very noisy (lot's of pops and ticks) flea market purchases are now almost completely silent. In fact when the stylus gets to the runout groove that's been covered by the plastic lid and not cleaned - the noise is back and by contrast you can easily hear the benefit of cleaning.

Charlie, I have taken your advice this weekend and purchased a steamer for my records. I have taken some of my recent purchases (moldy, dirty records) along with a few of my fathers old bluegrass records and did a lot of experimenting. I have used several commercial products but tend to prefer my own cleaning fluid when it comes to cleaning but for the experimenting, i chose records that were pretty grungy or just could not get clean with normal methods using disk doctor solution or my own solution. I will not bore people with every detail, but i can solidly recommend the steaming for any record you are cleaning. I have an old flatts and scruggs album that my dad used to play but it has not had an album cover or sleeve for at least 25 years. it is pretty scratched up and the grooves were full of junk. After two steam cleanings, the grooves are perfectly clean. There are some surface pops but nothing comes off on the stylus and once the music is on, the surface noise is not very loud compared to the music. I had another from this stack that i had cleaned via my normal methods using several types of cleanings including the diskdoctor solution and it was not clean. One cleaning with the steam process (as part of a cleaning regiment), the results paralleled the scruggs and flatts record. I steam after I apply the enzyme solution and have done a little preliminary scrubbing to ensure the liquid is in all the grooves. Then i spin the record and ensure the steam plume covers the entire record (takes about 5 revolutions). then I scrub the record with a diskdoctor brush and vacuum. I then rinse twice using pure water and clean brushes vacuuming between each rinse. On a thrift store record (moldy and dirty) it cleaned it up to the point there were no pops or clicks. On one of the thrift store records, there were some pops but upon close examination, i believe them to be surface scratches.

THe process works well with my enzyme/detergent wash solution and works well with the diskdoctor solution. The pointed nozzle (i have one that points down ) is plenty hot but does not cover a large surface area hence the record does not bow up as i have heard others report. I hold the steamer to the point the contact point is about the size of a dime or a little smaller.

In conclusion, I think your idea is a great advance towards cleaning and await your report on the bacteria approach. My industry using bacteria to breakdown waste water contaminents (organic) so i believe, once again you are on something.