Cleaning flood damaged vinyls

Sorry to hear about your flood damage Aceduck, and thanks for the mention Dtc.

I've read many threads on Audiogon, over many years, and should have signed up years ago! Anyway, it's my first post here..

Lots of good points made in previous posts here, and moldy records can be cleaned and improved, although the ultimate results depend a lot on how long they've been moldy and how bad they are. There's more than one kind of mold, and I've seen irreparable damage, with an "etched effect" on some customer's "problem" records. If this is the case then there may still be audible effects if the mold has damaged the vinyl, even if cosmetically the records are much improved.

You have a quality system that will be revealing enough to know if the "after cleaning" results are good enough, so I think the best thing to do would be to get me some sample records that I can pre-treat and then double-clean for you, so you can see/hear how you like the results.

The prices quoted above for Record Genie are correct (since March 2014) although mold remediation is something I normally charge $1 extra for unless it's just a couple of records as part of a larger batch.

Moldy records can't go straight into the ultrasonic cleaners (nor would you want them to) and must be carefully pre-cleaned before ultrasonic cleaning. I have a Spin Clean and a VPI 16.5 with a variety of products I've used successfuly, which can tackle almost any problem record. I avoid anything with alcohol in it, although I know others do use alcohol based cleaners.

Logistically, I'm based near Boston MA and have customers as far away as California who have had me clean as many as hundreds of records for them. I have special packaging "shipping kits" that I can send you to safely send a small sample batch of records, up to 18 of normal pressing weight. Just the records not the jackets. I don't normally deal with them, but jackets are a whole other problem, and likely cannot be saved if moldy, though it may be possible to clean and dry them, at least some of them, and there may be specialized equipment not normally used for record jackets that could be adapted and used to good effect.

As others have said, your insurance company is going to want to pay out as little as possible, and depending on the damage to your collection, you may be better trying to get them to settle for the whole lot, although if they're not insured as collectibles with some kind of higher or agreed value, then you may be out of luck. Food for thought for many of us I'm sure - What is my collection worth? What would it cost to replace? Is my collection properly insured?

If I was doing the whole job then I have large "shipping kits" you can use that take 60 records. I provide packaging to almost all my customers now, for free, with a refundable deposit. If you are near enough geographically then picking up the records would be more cost effective than shipping them, but USPS Media Mail rates are surprisingly affordable, it's less than $20 to ship a box of 60 records (weighing ~35 pounds) from anywhere in the USA. 2,000 records will take a lot of shipping kits, but keep in mind that it takes me 20 minutes to ultrasonically double-clean each record anyway, and mold will take longer.

The comments about maybe getting your insurance company to buy you an ultrasonic cleaner (or two) are valid, but there will be serious time constraints if you have only 1 machine to use, and if you also have other demands on your time, like work! I started Record Genie with an Audio Desk in September 2013, but as demand has grown, I needed more cleaning capacity, and now have 2 Audio Desk machines, 2 Klaudio machines, plus a VPI 16.5 conventional cleaner, and a Spin Clean too.

Perhaps 10 boxes of 60 records arriving per week, being cleaned and returned, might be the best approach. That's still 50 hours of cleaning for me, using 4 machines, PLUS the extra time needed for mold pre-cleaning. 600 records per week would get the job done over the course of only 3 or 4 very busy weeks. I'm quite sure time is of the essence to remove the mold as soon as possible.

Please contact me if you would like to have me clean some samples of your damaged records, perhaps a dozen favourites that you know well, or some of the worst ones you have, just to see if you would be happy with the results of pre-cleaning and ultrasonic double-cleaning..

Please let me know if you have any questions - I'm here to help!

To answer Whart's question about cleaning:

There's nothing "proprietary" about any of my cleaning processes, I simply use the Audio Desk machines with their cleaning agent as the manufacturer intended, and I use the Klaudio machines with frequent distilled water changes. I buy my water from CVS pharmacy in cases of 6 gallons, it's more expensive than Walmart's distilled water, but I like that it is also filtered to 0.5 micron.

I have two Audio Desk machines. At this point, one is really a backup machine, and I have modified the other one to work with 2 gallons of cleaning solution. Dirt settles on the deeper tank bottom, below where the pump pick-up is. I can clean the bigger water tank easily and completely, and I also modified that machine to allow early release of the record, to skip the Audio Desk drying cycle. When I am "double-cleaning" the records go straight from Audio Desk washing into one of my 2 Klaudio machines for the second part of the double-cleaning, and drying. Klaudio fans are more powerful fan and dry better than the Audio Desk, although I always run the full 5-minute drying time before putting records away in new sleeves. I use MoFi and Diskeeper 2.0 sleeves.

I use a water testing meter (measures TDS or "total dissolved solids" in PPM or "parts per million") and check often to see exactly how "dirty" the Audio Desk solution and Klaudio water is getting. I change the Klaudio water when it reaches 5ppm which is still absolutely crystal clear. Some of the increase in PPM can be attributed to small amounts of Audio Desk solution still on the record surfaces from the first cleaning. Audio Desk solution measures 3.5ppm when new.

Klaudio themselves recommend changing water every 100 records, and 5ppm comes up well before then, although of course that's entirely dependent on how dirty the records being cleaned are. The discarded Klaudio water might look perfect, but I know I want the best results for customers, so I check often and maintain strict quality control of what I am doing. It's only half a gallon of distilled water per change for each Klaudio machine, with no expensive cleaning solution added.

Any pre-ultrasonic cleaning steps are equally obsessive, for mucky garage sale finds, and especially for moldy records, which I rarely clean. I have "Vinyl-Stack" and "GroovMaster" label protector "handles" that make manual cleaning easier, and I have used Spin Clean, MoFi enzyme, Sporicidin, and also L'Art Du Son cleaner for pre-treatment. My VPI 16.5 machine obviously vacuums off fluid, but there is always the problem of clean and dirty sides (face down) so cleaning by hand, using dedicated brushes, and thorough rinsing with distilled water avoids risk of cross-contamination. I use a "pump-up" pressurized tank for easy spray rinsing with distilled water. When I need to pre-clean, I use a lot of extra distilled water.

I do all of this to make sure no mold goes into the ultrasonic cleaners, although the Audio Desk cleaning solution must be somewhat antibacterial since I've observed that stuff doesn't grow in old fluid (drained into gallon containers) like it can with Klaudio drain water that's been sitting for months. My precautions might be overkill, but I have an extra set of microfiber rollers that I swap in just for cleaning previously moldy records, and those records have to wait for cleaning right before I dump the Audio Desk cleaning solution at the end of it's useful life. When I clean the Audio Desk and start with new fluid, I also clean and refill the Klaudio machines.

To answer Miner42's question about Audio Desk vs Klaudio:

I know there are fans of both machines, and if you have only one then you might naturally consider it the best, that's human nature perhaps, but I have both machines (two of each) and consider them both equally essential to what I am doing for Record Genie customers..

I started with an Audio Desk in August 2013 and was going to buy a second one that September once I got started, but chose a Klaudio instead, and am glad I did as the machines both work differently to solve the same problem of dirty records. Later on, when I needed to add a third machine for more capacity, I asked customers which machine I should buy, Audio Desk or Klaudio? There was no clear answer, so I added another one of each, which maintained the same balance of cleaning capacity.

Early on, purely by chance, it was discovered that when used together the two different machines could offer even better results, as reported by one of my customers who is a jazz collector and had me double-clean a particularly noisy Blue Note for him. He reported back that the record went from very noisy to amazingly quiet, so we did some more testing, and that was the reason I started offering double-cleaning to other customers. It has been very popular.

In terms of double-cleaning, the Audio Desk's cleaning solution, rollers, and ultrasonic are good for the first step, especially for records with minor crud or fingerprints on them, and the cleaning solution has excellent anti-static properties too. The Klaudio's higher wattage ultrasonic in pure distilled water is the perfect second step, and you might say it's the better choice for "already cleaner" records. Water changes are important, especially the Klaudio, to get the second step closer to a pure rinse effect. I have also experimented with expensive "lab grade" water in the Klaudio machines, but customers (who all knew) did not report any difference that justified the extra expense.

Long answers I know, and maybe not what you were looking for, but hope that helps!

Bottom line is that if you're curious about ultrasonic cleaning, and the Audio Desk and Klaudio machines in particular, then I'd be happy to clean some records for you! Choose some favourites you know well, and have me do a mix of Audio Desk and Klaudio single-cleans, and some double-cleans (both machines), then play them afterwards and compare. Then you'll know how well either (or both) can work with your records, played on your system!

Thanks,
Dave

Whart - Unfortunately I haven't ever used a Keith Monks or Loricraft, but would love to have one to be able to experiment with, especially a Monks since I grew up in England and it would actually be really nice to use British rather than German and South Korean equipment! I know those machines have a good following and I understand why the results would be good on either, although time consuming because the point vacuum has to follow the entire length of the groove, and separately for each side.

I'm not sure why you're thinking it would be a problem to remove a record from a Klaudio during washing? There's really no need to do that, you can adjust the wash time from 0-5 minutes at any point, and the same for dry time. You could wash records continuously if needed, although I'd recommend a later version for that, as early ones didn't have any cooling, and the water would get hotter than you want. The early version didn't have the dual time selectors or nifty record light either..

I would be fascinated to visit the Library of Congress and talk with their experts about record cleaning and preservation, and I have read quite a bit on their website. Are they using any ultrasonic cleaning processes yet? They recommend the surfactant Tergitol, which I considered trying, but decided against it after checking the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for safe handling and disposal. Tergitol is readily available online, but is really nasty stuff for the environment, fish etc, and would pose a problem for safe disposal of used fluids. Since the Klaudio machines just use water, and the Audio Desk solution is biodegradable, they are not a problem for disposal and the environment.

My goal for Record Genie is always going to be getting the best results possible while still being practical, and while I'm obviously not afraid of investing in expensive equipment to do that, the resulting service still needs to be priced affordably for customers. I am interested in other technologies of course, not just ultrasonic, and am actively reading whenever I can. Have you any experience with the newer Clearaudio audio machine that uses vibrations (not ultrasonic) and cleans both sides at once? I think it's $5,500 retail, but I've read some good comments on at least one forum where it was compared with ultrasonic..

While I really feel sorry for Aceduck, and think it's an awful situation, it's great to have this discussion about record cleaning - So glad I finally joined Audiogon!