Deep Cleaning Records With Steam?

I cleaned 3 records today. One was a NF++ Pete, Paul and Mary from 1968, the worst one in my collection. It is so bad, that you just heard tics, tacs and pops so loud that you can't resist. After steaming it and do my thing, I can said, it's listenable now. The noise is still there, but softer and the music and voices are much better. I also did a Jackie Terrason and Ruben Blades records. Both sound great with much less noise and can play them at a higher volume. I can said the noise is non-offensive and you can deal with them. Once you steam a record, they look like new albuns.

It will take a bit more practice to master the steaming technic but itsn't that complicated neither. A tool I use and reccomend to you guys is to buy a Lazy Susan from WalMart, at the kitchen accesories section. They are about 13-14" circunference and made out of wood. Just turn then, take out the screw ( with care not to loose the small bearings). Then drill a bigger hole, enough to use a new threaded screw that can be used with the record hole. Set everything again and use a round cap/wood/top whatever do the trick, and clamp it. This will protect your record label, your hands and you could turn/spin the record around for scrubbing and steaming. If you have an extra rubber mat around use it between the record and susan. This makes everything much easier.

I might be showing my stupidity but surely steam shouldn't carry any of the solids out of the steamer - they should stay in the steam just as a kettle in a hard water area furs up?

I too purchased a Perfection steam cleaner at Walgreens and got great results. One day I wanted to clean a record and the Perfection was not turned on, but our steam iron was sitting on the ironing board still hot, so I added distilled water to it and used the steam setting.

Same result! Very fine mist of steam, very clean record.

This good news for me because it's one less piece of stuff to keep in my small workshop. Also the iron shuts itself off after 10 minutes or so.

Kirk

the statement is somewhat true. in a perfect distillation, the mineral stay in the water, but in the steamer there will be small droplets of water entrained in the steam. Hence the cleaner the water, the cleaner the steam. In commercial applications in making high quality steam, boiler manufacters recommend demineralized/RO/ or better water quality to make the steam

After reading through this thread, I had to give the steaming a try. I bought the Perfection from Walgreens this past weekend. I'm also using a device that I highly recommend called the Groovmaster from a seller on Ebay. It protects your labels from everything and also gives you a handle to hold while cleaning. If interested, just search Ebay for "groovmaster"(yes the "e" is supposed to be missing, and no I'm not the seller or affiliated in any way, just a satisfied customer).

Here's what I do, and I'm liking the results so far-

After clamping on the groovmaster, I steam both sides of the album, then wipe lightly with a microfiber towel to remove excess moisture. I am using Phoenix vinyl cleaner with enzymes, in a spray bottle. Spray both sides just enough to cover completely, then I spread the fluid with a 3 1/4" short bristle artist brush($3.79 at Pat Catan's). I leave the fluid sit for 3 minutes then steam blast it off both sides, making sure to remove the cleaner as much as possible.

The groovmaster then comes off, and I put the album on my Nitty-Gritty to vacuum dry. Each side then gets another blast of steam followed by vacuum and I'm done.

I'm not going to exaggerate or over-hype the results, I'll give it to you as I see it. While it doesn't take an album from "too noisy to listen to" to "dead silent background", I believe in some cases it does help- "some" being the key word here. What I think it does do almost always, is improve the sonics considerably. I've cleaned 6 or 7 albums this way so far, and I'm really liking the results. The sound really seems to "open up", the improved clarity is quite noticeable. Also, after this treatment, the albums look incredibly clean, I've never seem them so deep and dark black with a delicious luster to the finish(hows that for choice of words? Could I be a salesman?) The grooves are also more noticeable on the surface.

About the steamers- I also have a Shark handheld steamer that I bought a while back from Sears, and I don't like it too well. It spits and sputters too much, and has less pressure than the Perfection. But the bad thing about both of them is they don't maintain full pressure for very long. You have to stop frequently to let them build pressure back up because with continued use they just seem to "run out of steam"......... :-)

So that's my story, your results may vary. Thanks to all of you who have contributed to this thread, it's been quite interesting reading and very helpful.

Oh, I forgot one thing- at the moment I'm using r/o water from my local grocery store. They have a machine there, refills cost $.29 per gal. I don't seem to have a source around here for anything better and the nearest Pep Boys is an hour away. But I'll keep looking.