Deep Cleaning Records With Steam?

WillbeWill,

I think you must be very happy today - I thought Wales played magnificently - also thanks for letting us be second.
There is a Lidl near me so I will visit on Monday and see what they have.

Alan

Does anyone know of the equivalent steamers in the UK? I have searched through those available in this country and although they look similar there are no steamers that look exactly the same as the SteamFast - I would order from the States but shipping / fitting a 240/120 V transformer are holding me back! I already have a VPI HW16 which I will use and some Disc Doctor brushes /fluid - all I need is a steamer. Any help would be appreciated.
Alan

Charlie, thanks for that - I am surprised that no-one in the UK seems to be steaming! I may end up doing a survey of those available over here as I have about three thousand records a lot of which I do not play because of the amount of dirt / gunge in the bottom of the grooves - this despite cleaning them. This got worse when I started using a MusicMaker cartridge which apart from being very good at playing music is very good at reaching into the bottom of the grooves and extracting all the rubbish! Possibly a reason to go back to spherical diamonds??. Alan

I have managed to find what looks to be an extremely good steamer in the the UK - it is called a Hot Shot. It delivers a very fine spray with very few drops of water.
My first attempt to clean a record was on an old Jeff Beck album which had me cringing the first time I listened - after a good clean (on a VPI 16 / Spray / Disc Doctor / Vacuum / Spray / Vacuum cycle) I had a listen - the recording is still not very good (large amounts of distortion in the recording) but it is very listenable - so far so good. Next up was a John Lill recording of the Hammerklavier Sonata - this record is scratched and badly pressed - so the cleaning could not remove these problems - but what came through was a beautiful sound - despite the clicks etc the background was silent - I have not enjoyed listening to this for a long time - it is wonderful to have the music back!! I will make sure I steam clean every record before playing - a convert / zealot.
So many thanks to all on the thread (especially Charlie) for bringing back the life to my vinyl.
Alan

A note from the UK. I had started using the Hot Shot steamer with reasonable results, however WillBeWill said he had purchased a steamer from Lidl - so I thought I would give it a go - it cost £14.99 and seems to work better than the hot shot. It is a very solid German made unit - called a Lervia. On inspection I found the main difference between the units (apart from build quality) was that the Hot Shots spout is quite wide whereas the Lervia has a brass ferrule with a very small hole in it - this is what seems to give it a much finer spray. As previously reported I have found some UltraPure water (Fezer) and the results are even better.
As with some other contributors I have found problems cleaning records which have been treated with Last.
The next part has nothing to do with Steaming (so if the moderator wants to remove this part OK) more to do with cleaning records - has anybody tried using Ultrasonics to clean records in the way that DVDs & CDs can be cleaned.

Charlie, I have found what looks like a good source of ultra-pure water available in Europe - it is a Germany based company - if you would like to follow the link it details the steps to create this water - looks similar to your description of Peak. http://www.feser-one.com/site/product_info.php?cPath=70&products_id=267