Best cleaning fluid procedures with VPI HW16.5??

10% alcohol is a lot. You usually don't need to break anything down on viyl because not too many things bond to vinyl. If some solvent is needed, it should be not very volatile. More than 99% of of records can be cleaned with a surfactant. Some may require soaking for longer periods; 15 - 30 min, but they usually come clean.

Never use a volatile alcohol on a vinyl record. Alcohol can only hurt records not clean them; it will make them harder and harder to keep clean by attacking the vinyl's natural protectant. Alcohol is an organic SOLVENT. Unless you have spilled something like paint or glue or some other organic material, you don't need a solvent. For strong cleaners, there may be a 0.001 - 0.002% of solvent added, but this is to help the surfactant dissolve better in water, and we're talking 1 or 2 drops per qt. All you need for records is a surfactant in water. Even the most critical lab analysis equipment, which uses vinyl tubes to hold samples, uses a surfactant and water solution. The beauty of vinyl is that dirt is very easily removed, but if you damage the vinyl surface by drying it out and causing cracks. I make 3 strenghts of record cleaners. The first will clean 99 out of 100 recors. It contains a surfactant for vinyl and water. You don't need anything else, if people tell you otherwise watch out. A gallon of vinyl cleaner should cost less than $20. Detergents like dish cleaner, are good for really soiled records, completely cover the playing surface on your VPI and let it soak for a while. I use 2 VPI cleaning machines; one for really dirty records, and one for everyday cleaning. The really dirty records get a second cleaning on the every day machine. Again completely cover the record and let it soak, I use these white felt brushes that someone sells in packs of ten before the actual vacuuming. You need to clean all brushes including the felt on the VPI regularly. Dirt particles on there can scratch the records and buildup of the surfactant can lead to surfactant remaining on the record and hurting the sound.

If a record is really dirty, I use a stronger solution of surfactant. Only certain surfactants are good for vinyl. All of those are liquid at room temp. This is where a small amount of solvent helps get more of the surfactant into solution. I use thw white felt brushes that my dealer sells in 10 packs. I don't know who makes them. Because they're whit I can see if there is still dirt coming off the record. If there is I wash it again. I have occasionally had to wash records 3-4 times.

The dish detergent is only used as the first pass for really dirty (especially greasy fingerprints) records. Use with tap water. They need to be rinsed off and then cleaned with distilled water or everyday LP cleaner. I find that really old fingerprint stains are virtually impossible to remove. So listen to determine if the dirty fingerprints are affecting the sound first.