budget cleaning ideas for garage sale records?

So the Library of Congress is the final word on record cleaning? Do they have better hearing than any of us here? Should we always blindly trust Government Agencies?

The fact is that most record vinyl contains plasticizers that make the vinyl more pliable, to aid the stamping process. The plasticizer of choice is diocytl phthalate, a dibasic fatty acid, which is IPA (ISO-Propyl alcohol) soluable. (It will disolve with IPA). Will you see it with the naked eye? No. The time of contact will determine the ammount that disolves, as well as the solution concentration. I realise the time of contact is short, (less thn 1 minute) and most use a concentration that is less than 50%, however, there is still loss.

I've tried DIY cleaning solutions made of dishwashing soaps, all which left behind a film which caused loss of detail, loss of high frequencies, and dynamics. Granted, this is to my hearing and with my system. Results may vary ...

In my opinion, there are many commercial cleaners that work well, are IPA free, and cost less than 5 cents per record cleaned. Turomat TM/7 and Record Research come to mind. Disc Doctor is also alcohol free, but requires a rinse cycle, so it leaves a film behind. (And also is more labor intensive). With the Disc Doctor, you should also have another wand for your VPI machine so as to prevent cross contamination with the rinse cycle. It shouldn't harm your records though.

My point; the "expensive" cleaners cost pennies per use and won't harm your records. Is it logical to spend a few pennies on your vinyl?

Just to clarify my previous posts, the question was about garage sale vinyl. Keeping that in mind and having tried very hard to acquire vinyl at this type of venue (I have since given up because the time spent exceeds the value received) I have purchased albums which didn't come clean using commercial cleaners. For the record (pun intended) I clean most of my vinyl with disc doctor followed by a deionized h20 rinse, gruv glide and protective sleeves.

I clearly recall buying three Jimmi Hendrix discs that had no inner sleeves but otherwise looked salvageable. There appeared to be hard spots deposited on these discs. Commercial cleaners only broke down the surfaces of these spots and smeared whatever was disolved on the rest of the album surface. It was only through several washings with pure denatured alcohol that the matter was removed. I estimate the number of cycles to clean these records at about ten apiece and each of these cycles required scrubbing, not a mere wipe-down. I was very careful about cross contamination and used old discwasher brushes for the process and washed them in deionized water and rinsed with alcohol between cycles. Eventually I applied the last h20 rinse and used my vacuum machine, applied gruv glide and auditioned the finished product.

The finished product was as good as a freshly opened, factory sealed LP, with even the run-in groove being silent. These records proved to be worth the effort and the RISK. Without the last ditch effort to clean these rare pieces of music history they would have been tossed in the trash. The jackets are perfect and I have since bought junk copies just for the inner sleeves (white) to keep the history accurate.

Remember, the post was about garage sale vinyl, not the care and feeding of your average audiophile's vinyl library. To the nay-sayers, please go buy a junk piece of vinyl and try it. Then post your experience.

I close by stating that I would rather have melted these discs in the attempted process of clean-up than cross contaminating my stylus.

Happy listening,
Patrick

Which commercial cleaners had you tried? I've found a few 1500 series Blue Notes that were junk (VG condition) when purchased, but cleaned up fine with safe commercial cleaners. That said, maybe we came to the same final results, just from a different approach. Mine is safe though.

You may wish to use only deionized water to wash your old discwasher brushes, as the denatured water will also break down the adhesives that hold the velvet on your Discwasher brush, which will most likely contaminate the record surface that you are attempting to clean with the solvent/adhesive slurry. And, with added pressure, you could be doing more harm than good. It sounds like this wasn't the case, the records cleaned up well.

I'm happy that you are attempting to salvage what may be deemed unplayable records. I applaud your efforts.

By the way, I believe that you meant to say that you'd," ...rather have melted discs in the attempted process of clean-up, than by contaminating my stylus". Or that you'd risk melted discs, rather than contaminate your stylus. There are stylus cleaners that work well, should this happen.

Best wishes,
Jack

jacks,

I tried the Nitty Gritty cleaner (which I do not like) and the Disc Dr., both to no avail. The cleaning process I used for the old Discwasher brushes was a deionized water (actually the water I use comes from a computer chip manufacturer locally and is laboratory grade) soak, followed by a quick denatured alcohol bath, another h20 rinse and blow dry with compressed air. My compressor is set up for paint booth use and has an oil trap/filter and water trap/filter.

Denatured alcohol does not contain lanolin. It does contain some types of additives commonly found in gasoline. Yeah, I know, sounds spooky but rubbing alcohol contains all the above. I also added Kodak photo-flo to the 50/50 solution. I was shocked at the outcome because I felt that there should have been some kind of leaching of chemistry from the vinyl and maybe there was, but I certainly can't hear any degradation of sound. The vinyl remains very black and very shiny.

My TT is a Linn LP12/Valhalla/Nirvana/Ittok/Asaka. As difficult as this stuff was to remove from the LP I was really concerned about contaminating the stylus. It is difficult to describe how much elbow grease went into cleaning these records; it took an entire afternoon non-stop. Since the commercial cleaning materials I used failed to clean the vinyl I had serious concerns about commercial cleaners successfully cleaning the stylus.

PLEASE keep in mind that these aren't my regular cleaning habits. Most of my vinyl library was purchased new beginning in 1962. (I still have that first album by The Fleetwoods and it sounds as good as the day I bought it) I have spend thousands of dollars since that time buying just about every cleaning device I could find. In 1982 I contracted having my entire library professionally cleaned using the Keith Monks machine. It is only within the last six months that I purchased a machine for myself.

With over 3500 LP's in my collection I don't measure my life by time but rather by music. To all that are getting into analog, please set aside some money for a modest vacuum cleaning machine.

Happy listening,
Patrick

Patrick, want to thank you again here for communicating with me to set up the tonearm!

You're hell of an effort guy! I confess that I wouldn't ever launder vinyls so heavy -- slight damages maybe or I won't place them under my Lyra Helikon. I believe that paying more money for the same good condition record is much cheaper but say thanks to addiction!