vinyl cleaning with wood glue....works?

Davidsss,

Crackiling records is not always grimne or dirt in the groves. Other things tha can cause crackles and things you can't really do anything about include:

Poor vinyl substrate. There were unscrupulously made LPs in the day using cheap vinyl and often contaminated vinyl.

Micro groove damage from a previous user who maybe handled albums poorly, had poorly maintained turntable and cartridge riding and damaging the groove. You can't see this damage with the naked eye.

Static build up and release as the cartridge pays. This is often a problem in drier climates as static build with lower humidity. You can try to do things to help reduces such static. Using a carbon fibre brush making sure you touch a metal object to ground yourself as you use the CF brush. You can use one of those static guns and also try to keep static from building if you live in a very dry climate buy employing a humidifier in the room.

04-03-10: Dan_ed
good luck, but it sounds like damage to me

It won't damage it; LPs are made of polyvinylchloride--PVC, same material as plastic plumbing pipes. If you put Elmer's on PVC and let it dry, you can peel it right off with no damage to the PVC.

I've tried the Elmer's (white) glue on LPs. It peels off fine and doesn't damage the LP surface. If it leaves residue it's water soluble. In my experience, however, it didn't clean the record or lower the noise significantly. I got better results with a handheld $20 steam cleaner (like the Walgreen's Perfection Steamer) and microfiber terry cloths for cleaning and then drying (separate cloths).

Well I had a go, but some background first.

The record in question is an old copy of Led Zeppelin IV. It is on very thick vinyl, one of the thickest records I own. It is an old copy.

This record was cleaned with my usual method:
1) Steam the record and wipe the water off.
2) Apply cleaning fluid (one third isopropyl, two thirds water and a few drops of dishwasher rinse aid) with disc doctor brush.
3) Vaccum fluid off using a modified crevice tool.
4) Apply distilled water with a separate disc doctor brush.
5) Vacuum water off with a separate modified crevice tool.

This gave some improvement but it was still crackly. I should note there that this is all I do to 99% of my record purchases (I buy quite a lot of second hand) and it works very well, most records are quiet and fine after this. New records I do not steam, just a wet clean.

I then applied my method for really hard to clean records:
Using an artists' paint brush I apply straight isopropyl into the grooves while the record spins.
This is followed with the usual method.

This did improve the record quite a bit but still a fair bit of crackling. I should note here that it is very rare for a record to still have a problem after all this cleaning, but there is always one!

Hence the experiment with glue.

The glue went on easily. Getting it off wasn't quick or simple, but not too bad. It did all come off, especially after a wet clean as per my usual methd.

The result: the crackles remain on the record.

My conclusion: I actually think that the glue method probably does quite a good job. It just does not do any more than the other methods I have described above. The glue does get right into the grooves and I reckon would lift off any dirt. I would add, though, that the glue method does, in my opinion anyway, pose a bigger risk of damaging a record. I had to use fingernails to remove some of the glue. Now, in my opinion vinyl is quite strong and nowhere near as fragile as some claim, but, I would prefer not to do this.

As for the record, well it must be damaged. I recently bought another copy so that is fine and it means this copy was good for the experiment. Given that I already have a few methods at hand which, on the evidence of this record, can get out just as much dirt as the glue method, I will not be using glue again.

Good luck to those who use glue, I have heard quite a few people who find using glue a very good way of cleaning records. I will stick with my current methods as my experiment suggests they are just as effective and are more convenient for me.

DS

JOhnnyb53, the point was that what Davidsss described sounded to me like damaged vinyl. Not that the glue was going to hurt the LP. As David reports back, that indeed is the case.

Maybe someone should drop the glue thing and come up with a vinyl spackle. :-)

04-05-10: Dan_ed
Johnnyb53, the point was that what Davidsss described sounded to me like damaged vinyl. Not that the glue was going to hurt the LP.

Now that I understand what you meant, I agree, and my experience matches Davidsss as well. I have a very noisy MoFi pressing of Supertramp's "Crime of the Century." Cleaning it with record cleaning fluid and a handheld steamer lowered the noise a bit, but spreading on some Elmer's glue and peeling it off after it dried didn't improve things any further.

So as you conclude, if there's no improvement, it's damaged vinyl or a bad pressing.