Deep Cleaning Records With Steam?

Just bought a steam cleaner today! I have had my interest peaked in this issue! I had a Apollo Moon Lp from a friend's basement that was so bad with mold I would not even put it on the RCM. I mean mold from rim of record to label. So a perfect candidate. Well it is almost tick free! It was also somewhat scatchy. So this for sure works. After steam cleaning I use the RCM.

So for sure on turd records this works. (nothing to lose)

I also did buy 2 mint condition Prince Purple Rain LP's today to go with the one I have. Mine has a slight cloudiness. I have several lp's that LOOK mint but sound cloudy??? You can see a kind of haze on the record. This is what interests me in this! I don't have hardly any moldly lp's the the Apollo one. But I do have many slightly cloudy ones.

I think this is mold from being stored in the basement. I don't mean massive mold but the kind you have to angle the record in the light the right way.

I will let everyone know my opinion on the this cleaning with the 3 Prince lp's. I can see this works on garbage records but what does it do to the sound on good ones? I have a Beatles White Album in the same condition (looking mint sounding cloudy)

I am concerned some people are buying lousy records steam cleaning them to reduce noise and open up sound but also doing groove damage? So I will do a sound demo on a Prince records.

What frustrates me is the mint looking slightly cloudy lp that sounds cloudy and there is NO WAY the RCM gets that off. I have tried so many times. I think RCM's clean dirt but do not take off light mold. This is where the Steam cleaner does make sense!

So far things look promising but scary! It looks as if I have done groove damage to the Prince lp. (none was done to the Apollo one) There is a wavy look at some spots where maybe melted the vinyl somewhat. But the sound is MUCH more open! First impression tells me this is as much an improvement as the $500 RCM! and it was $30!

Very excited this is interesting. I will keep posted the test is being done on a audiophile level turntable.

One word of caution the Prince lp is a '80's LP and looks to have distorted the Apollo is much heavier vinyl and seems to have no problem.

Crem1 I did read quite a lot but not all. The one prince record which is '80's and the vinyl is thin did distort on the grooves. It still seems to sound very good though. I am interested in this process for those records that have a light mold on them that my RCM does not clean. I bought a steamer to clean our vinyl windows and got thinking then stumbled onto the tread. Any suggestions?

Crem1 that is why I bought the other 2 price lp's mine has a slight mold but the 2 I bought are clean. They were cheap to experiement with and I can compare to a pristine copy. I know they get cleaner without a doubt! but wondered what happened to the grooves? Do you know what temp mold breaks down? This can only work if mold breaks down before vinyl distorts? I my case the records I am interested in this are mint (looking) but I feel sound 80%. The Apollo 11 record is garbage so all upside. (and work it does!) But what I did not want was to turn my mint vinyl with slight haze (mold) into 40% sounding vinyl? Cleaner yes but distorted?

I admit to getting carried away with the Prince record. I was just seeing how much I could steam. I am going to try the mild bleach. I do believe cleaning with hot water for sure works. Funny no one has done it to vinyl records before? I mean we clean everything in hot water?

How much bleach to distilled water?

Cleaned a Abbey Road (Beatles) lp and it was a BIG improvement! The improvement came in voices mostly. Much easier to tell who was singing each song and back-ups. I was quite surprised. Thanks Crem1!

I also cleaned a White Album with mixed results. It sounds more open and I hear things I never heard before but it seems to reveal what I always thought that the album has was more wear than is visible. So the mixed results are I thought it was going to clean the mold off and the lp would sound great but it still does not sound great (just more open) but the high's seem worse or I just notice them more?

Anyone else find that out?

The upside is HUGE with this though like a component (pre amp) upgrade. I would say as noticeable as when I got the RCM which I always tell people that is big. They do seem to work well together.

Listened to Abbey Road 4 times yesterday in shock at how much better it sounded. Crem1 what records in general get better, no doubt if crud in the groove is a problem and not groove wear. Have you found that sometimes when steamed sound opens up but wear shows up even more. This seemed to happen to me on the White Album.

davidsss I think the tick is sometimes maybe mold. I often wonder if the heat is enough to release the mold? I think dirt as well and one guy menttioned not needing a RCM. I still do not regret buying mine. It just works even better now.