Deep Cleaning Records With Steam?

Ghosthouse : Thank you for your posting. Your comments in regard to bacteria are helpful.

It seems to me that microbes scour the LP grove better than most cleaners, although I have been assured their actions can be minicked by enzymes alone. Perhaps that is so, but bio-mediated cleaning (given all the pre-conditions you noted) is going to open a whole new set of options for cleaning LP groves.

I know of several Hi-Tech Companies here and abroad that are committed to the development of microbe-cleaners for home uses. Microbe-based technology isn't going to go away . Most likely we will find microbe-products in stores shortly .

A note from the UK. I had started using the Hot Shot steamer with reasonable results, however WillBeWill said he had purchased a steamer from Lidl - so I thought I would give it a go - it cost £14.99 and seems to work better than the hot shot. It is a very solid German made unit - called a Lervia. On inspection I found the main difference between the units (apart from build quality) was that the Hot Shots spout is quite wide whereas the Lervia has a brass ferrule with a very small hole in it - this is what seems to give it a much finer spray. As previously reported I have found some UltraPure water (Fezer) and the results are even better.
As with some other contributors I have found problems cleaning records which have been treated with Last.
The next part has nothing to do with Steaming (so if the moderator wants to remove this part OK) more to do with cleaning records - has anybody tried using Ultrasonics to clean records in the way that DVDs & CDs can be cleaned.

A conditional yes. My first home made RCM was a ultrasonic-based unit that was affective in removing debris from the groves. Water quality played an important role with that ultrasonic unit. With the unit turned on , the record grove acted like a radiator fin vibrating at high speed. Minerals in the water attracted to the outer edge of the groove caking the rim a with white powery substance. The stuff seemed to start building @ 1 1/2-2 minutes of on-time. A home-brew fluid corrected the problem. Shortly after that I discovered steam cleaning . That RCM and a few others I created just sit on shelves for now. The exception is a LP destatic/drying unit I worked on that does both in 10-15 sec.

Hey Crem give us more info on your destatic/drying unit.

As soon as I find a buyer for the idea which in all
likelyhood isn't going to happen soon. I guess that other units are probably out there in the East but I have not seen one yet.

The unit destatics , spins, drying both sides using a high-speed fan , brushes & drying rims in a unique configuration. Kinda like a a spinning hair dryer , zero-stat machine . And yes "It" works. I can't show it since I don't oun a patent and its orgins are not just unique to "Em-wa".