Steam cleaning records 2

Wr4, I would proceed with caution. 78's are made with different materials and subject to breaking. I do not steam my 1903 talking machine cyclinders and none of my friends with RCA Victrola Credenza's steam their 78's. Our ancient recordings are cleaned using super fine brushes & Disc Doctor products.

Thanks. I figured if no one had written about it, it was probably a bad idea. So, even though 78s were made when we still had steam locomotives, no steam cleaning!

Wr4 , You have a excellent point. My guess is they applied sota materials drawn from nature, no exclusive "human-made" material. Just as Edison & his team did. I own a few very early cylinders, they are 99 percent'ish beeswax. But do try the Disc Doctor products , the inventor is a 78 collector. And yes, no one had the household steamers until 15-ish years ago-We are far better off in more ways than they.

ordered a steamer finally. meantime cleaning with distilled water/isopropyl. finish with a modified home vacuum cleaner. noticed a drop in highs. cleaned stylus, still same. then added couple drops liquid dishwashing soap to the mix. little better but still missing 'energy' and a little highs. disc doctor site mentions several plays needed cos stylus is tracking a newly exposed groove. anybody else has same problem?

solved the problem. turned out to be a dirty stylus after all! i had only dry brushed the stylus in the excitement of the moment. when i wet brushed it, was clean and clear. whew! still a few pops and crackles so waiting to see how many of these steam cleaning does away with!