Deep Cleaning Records With Steam?

All its truly unfortunate that this fine thread has turned into a BS match. There is no doubt about it that steaming is the best way to clean a LP. For the life of me i cant understand whats the problem. I for one dont give a rats ass who came up with it. If its you Crem many thanks. All that should be going on here is the promotion of steaming. All of the other BS must cease. Please find your perspective on what important to the betterment of vinyl playback for all. We can agree that steaming is the answer to the best in vinyl cleaning which means better playback. So lets get back to the real meaning of this thread.

Deep Cleaning Records with Steam.

Putting rats ass's aside , I wish to reframe the question, perhaps for the better so we can all agree.

The concern is not with cones , hoses or any other useful attachment that could better promote a more productive method to deep steam clean records. The concern is focused on the chemicals used to manufacture those potentally helpful attachments. And, that leads to a recommendation we advoid those attachments until we know with some scientific certianity those chemicals we all agree we can smell ,or touch, are harmless to our records and ourselves.

This view similar to a child's toys, we do not wish to ban the toys but the compounds that are we feel are a danger to the child. Since our LPs have no lobby in Congress it is up to us to regulate the matter for ourselves.

Closely, alined to the chemical concerns are safety issues , as well as ,recommendations that are well intended but may have unintended consequences.

For instance, most if not all of the consumer handheld steaming units come from China. That fact alone should give us pause in light of its track record on contamination to reconsider our positions.

Put aside the small stuff , lets look at the big picture : Can we remove those chemicals with household cleaners ,dishwashers or not ?

And secondly, why trust those that fail to have the welfare of ourselves and our families in mind ? Audio aside, the "anything goes" crowd is a danger, particularly when they try to get their hands in your money pocket.

Can we all agree on the above as a starting point to resolve the stated concern(s) ? Thank you for reading and good night.

I know I'm in the minority here but(possibly along with Stltrains) I feel like the paranoia over chemicals in the cone attachment is a little over the top. It's hard for me to see how a significant amount of contamination could occur from this. Using a steamer with the 16.5 as Stltrains and I (among others) do would be impossible or very hard to do without this attachment. The steamer would have to be tipped more than would be safe. Also, I would think that the ultra pure water rinces and vacuuming should take care of those deposits should they be there. I realize this is not scientific by any means but all I'm noticing is cleaner and better sounding vinyl. I'm not worried about the attachments.

This group of posts is amazing...I never thought people would have so much to say about steam cleaning records

I'm not Sonofjim, but I think that there probably is some paranoia / OCD over water purity. Straight tap water will more than likely cake up the steamer depending upon your water hardness, but yes, I think reagent grade water is OTT when you consider the amount of time the water actually spends on a record.

I myself use softened / RO water straight from my own filter.

I think that the possibility of contaminants reaching the surface of records due to a hose attachment of the Perfection Steamer is minimal, concern that it is misplaced. The chances of water breaking down the elements of composite fixtures are slim at best in our lifetime, regardless of their smell. The real risk is the waters reaction the various metals in the steaming path, especially where dis-simmilar metals are in contact with water and electrons (electricity) are excited by the heat/energy. You will do no physical harm to your records by adding an attachment to your steamer. Come on, where are you science teachers that drummed this useless fact into my head over the years?

T: I certianly agree that a video is a good way to express steaming & I shall do one when my I.T. friends have the time & equipment to assist.

Readers: From the "paranoia" response I see that there is no concensus regarding leaching chemicals. I agree that maybe over-the-top for folks whom I suspect have limited collections (500 LPs or so), having little or no interest beyond the moment. But what about folks like me with 5,000 + LPs or friends that own 15,000 or more of the rarest LPs in the world. How about them? I have several friends (including me) that pay for music advisors to search the world for only the most significant recordings. The cost ranges $35 to $120 per LP to $1,100 per set US for certian recordings. Gosh, for the insidental collector paying 25 cents to a dollar per LP, frankly I would drop the thread & do what you please. But for the record collectors that oun & pay the big bucks for recordings, paying out $100,000 or more on playback equipment they express strongly to me any reservation on chemicals.

I would also suggest that if your Turntable performace is in the Mid-fi land , forget the thread and do what you want. Who cares with the exception of the fact that steaming with or without attachments is going to make a big impact on the listening experience. For the insidental record owner with a couple hundred , I understand your view. But, please understand that institutional collectors around the world have more of a stake in this because of the numbers game (100,000 + LPs).

Forgive me, but I have noticed a real gulf of opinion between Europeans who are "Green-Green" and State-Siders who are oh hum on chemical issues. I understand that I hope some posters understand they are on the oh hum side of the conversation.

I only hope that those of us that want to push the SOTA forward as far as steam cleaning regardless of numbers of LPs appreciates steaming is not for everyone, as is record care generally.

OK, for the small minority left my question remains " How do we get the chemicals removed/lowered in profile from Chinese made steaming units ?" Or do you throw caution to the wind become Oh Hum and steam w/o regard of the longer-term consequences ? Now that's the $64,000 question, pun intended. All the best.

I also believe that a double rinse with lab grade water is more than enough to remove with vacuuming any left over contaminates. The difference in the sound of steamed lps is what tells me that the surface of my lps are as clean as it gets.
I only use distilled water in my steamer not lab grade due to the fact of seeing what it looks like after being inside after hear up. If anything this water seems like it would do more harm than what could come off of any of the attachments.
I have accepted this as part of the process and i am going with it.
Like most things we have the last say in what we accept. And for now a am very happy with the results i'm getting with my vinyl collection steam cleaning with my method.

S: Enjoy & good night.

But what about folks like me with 5,000 + LPs or friends that own 15,000 or more of the rarest LPs in the world. How about them? I have several friends (including me) that pay for music advisors to search the world for only the most significant recordings.

I have to ask, do you also pay someone to clean your records?

If you spent 2 hours a day every single day cleaning records and took 10 minutes per record it would take over 3 years to clean 15,000.

If a typical record is 40 minutes long and you somehow manage to listen an average of 4 hours a day every single day it would take about 7 years to listen to 15,000 if you never repeated.

I do have a steamer and clean special records, but at some point the effort outstrips the reward. I find it impossible to believe that anyone would clean 5,000 records much less 15,000, and who can ever expect to clean 100,000 or ever listen to them.

I have probably over 3,000 myself but would never consider cleaning all of them. The time it takes to do so takes away from the limited time I have to listen. The amount of time spent in this thread on the minutia of the process is time wasted that could have been spent listening. I propose that you have become so eaten up with the process of cleaning that you have detracted from the joy of listening.

Herman your distorting what I ment but you have a point, even if your needle is gouging into the vinyl . Had I understood how far reaching & insiteful you are I would have never given you the time of day much less taken 100's of hours of my time to carefully doctument the process & testing Steam Cleaners to save YOU money. Herman, I plead guilty for misunderstanding the creatant thinking. You have a perfect right to be a lug and your right again. Responding takes away from my precious time that I NEED TO STEAM !! So why waste your time sending me tripe? Oh Herman thanks I think I'll listen to the needle slaming into the label full tilt , thanks again, Hey gang what a guy...Oh Doctor, Doctor do you have any little green pills to make him go away ? Thanks, Doctor I FEEL so much better...Herman get a life. Ha, Ha Ha .... Ah, just one question before I go ... What have you ever done to advance the SOTA in record enjoyment besides writing this ? Now, I'll have another pill Doc... All the best & don't be too insulted , you already did that to me.

Rsrex,
I think it can be debated whether plain distilled water is good enough for the steamer. It probably is. As far as the rince goes though, I think it's best to stay as pure as is feasible. I accidently splashed some of my reagent grade water on my bathroom mirror, didn't wipe it off and when it dried it left no trace of water mark at all. This little incident gives me the peace of mind that after a double rince the residual water after vacuuming is leaving as little residue on the surface as it dries as possible. Try leaving some of your RO water on glass to dry and see if it leaves a residue. If it doesn't it's probably as effective as the reagent grade for the purpose of cleaning records. Of course, the sonic effects of any residue left by water may be another area of debate.

Well, aren't we a little full of ourselves. St. Crem spreads the holy gospel of steam cleaning and gets his feathers ruffled when asked a perfectly logical question. Were you drunk? Your other posts have been well constructed with few if any grammatical or spelling errors. This little rant is chock full of them.

You stated that this process was important to collectors of valuable records like yourself who have upwards of 100,000 records. I am simply pointing out that the task of cleaning such a collection using your method, or any method for that matter beyond a simple dusting is beyond the realm of any reasonable human being. That means that the process is no more valuable to somebody with 100,000 than to someone with 500 since the former would never be able to implement it.

I also think my observation is valid that at some point the hours put into this thread and the hours spent cleaning could be better spent listening. There must be a reasonable balance between listening to dirty records and spending an inordinate amount of time cleaning records and talking about cleaning records.

If that pisses you off as it clearly has I fail to see the reason why. I appreciate your input and thanked you early on in this thread for bringing this process to my attention. I think my observations yesterday were valid, well reasoned, sincere, and in no way flaming you.

I apologize if it seemed otherwise but I must say your response was completely unexpected.

.

Sonofjim (and Crem),
I understand your concern over contaminents, I'm just trying to put it into the bigger picture. First, keep in mind that any water passing through the steamer is undergoing a distillation process. After all, distillation is nothing more that condensing steam, isn't it? Now, maybe I'm doing this incorrectly, or skipping a step or three, but I use the steam as a rinse and then vacuum it off. Am I supposed to flush the record with "rinse water" after steaming?

As far as the mirror experience, there is one difference. I bet you didn't vacuum the mirror! Any rinse cycle goes through a vacuum cycle, (at least in my process) so there shouldn't be anything to dry on the surface. Nothing to dry should translate into no residue, correct? Now if the argument is that you can never get all of the water out of the groove, then I'll extend that argument to you can never truly get a clean record because some debris will stay in suspension, drying at the bottom of the groove.

I can clean 5 LPs in a about 20 minutes. Those LPs will provide about 200 minutes of (often vastly) INCREASED listening pleasure. That's a 10/1 ratio and a very worthwhile investment IMO.

Sure there are LPs that don't really "need" cleaning, so I go ahead and listen to them and hope that one day I'll get around to cleaning those too because I know that even those WILL benefit from the process.

What's the alternative? Is it to listen to "dirty" records? Records that have "issues" that could be rectified by spending a few minutes in the cleaning process? I'd rather spend a few minutes on those and have a significantly more enjoyable listening experience.

If you and your collecting acquaintances can afford to pay people to search out those rare vinyl gems then maybe you can afford to invest some money to pay someone to clean your records. This is one thing I would trust to very few people, but it would most likely be better than not doing it at all. Ha, I also like to work on my own cars. ;-}

All valid arguments Rsrex. Just stating the logic behind my particular regimen. More than one way to skin a cat.

Sonofijm : Thanks for understanding .

Here's a twist to this mach of ideas. My best friend, my mom , was agast at what transpired on the thread (me & them-Hello Herman). Mom's view was it isn't the attachments , it the Price. Unknown to me Mom purchased 2 other handheld steamers via TV; the "JJ-1000" (76.00 US) and a "Monster" SC135 ($40.00 US); Today, I demo'ed them . My impression for each, the attachments didn't reel in oder and secondly while I continue to prefer the "bloom" of the "Perfection" , I could live with either.And, the attachments seened benine. Mom's point of view was "money makes the difference".

Now for the important part. Today I was phoned by an old friend, Leo , who is a former chemist for Grace & Co. Leo, rarely reads the thread. But when he did, alarms rang in his chemist-mind. Leo said he was deeply concerned that the "smell" could be lead. Leo is an expert in manufacturing and said he is awaire of manuacturing methods in China that could exposs us to Lead contamination. Leo, urged me to "tear apart" the Perfection box looking for a lead acknowledgement that must by US Law be printed on the box- where is another matter. After examinating the interior & exterior , on the bottom this is what I found on tape embossed across the bottom : WARNING : This product contains chemicals, including lead known to the State of California to cause CANCER or other reproductive harm. WASH HANDS AFTER USING.

I ask each of you to look for a CHEMICAL//LEAD disclaimer on your Perfection box , please review the information .

Dispite the slurrs of some , I care about all of you. Here is scientific evidence my fears are justified. Sono, you stood with me in a dark hour, I deeply Thank You. Now I have to worry about deep breathing this poison to alert you ... Leo feels the exposure would be non-threadening if we wore gloves and cleaned up immediatly afterward. Either of the units Mom bought are OK with me, none had a CHEMIAL/LEAD warning.

Crem, this has become truly bizarre. I merely pointed out that you were spending an inordinate amount of time and effort on this process and now you have turned it into a personal attack and brought your Mother into the discussion. I must withdraw as I have no rebuttal for the mommy factor. However, I genuinely am concerned about the state of your mental health since your postings have clearly deteriorated in style as well as having a marked increase in grammatical and spelling errors. I apologize if you are suffering from some malady that we are unaware of.

Anybody who has a balanced view of life can’t help but notice that yours is clearly unbalanced with your admitted 100’s of hours spent on this thread alone. I question my own sanity with the little time I’ve spent on it.

I must also say that in an odd way I do admire your fixation with this topic much as I admire a mad genius like Glenn Gould who obsessed about finding a perfect piano, but at the end of the day it really isn’t a healthy place to be.

I will leave you alone to your obsessions and paranoia. Adios.

.

Gentlemen, I can't thank you enough...I don't recall the last time I laughed this much...Zenblaster may have been a tad remiss...this is not self adulation but more like self flagellation...
Cheers

Tvad lead in the cord what else is China dropping on us. At least you took the time to read the label. Thanks for the info. I will be tossing my Perfection as well. Lets find another steamer thats a fit for our quest of the cleanest vinyl possible that won't sneak up and kill us. How in the hell can our so political correct government let this kind of BS go on is beside me. Again many thanks for the very important information.

I don't want to downplay peoples concerns over lead but I think this is another fear possibly being blown out of proportion. Did you know that the same warning is posted on the little Christmas lights most of us hang on our trees.(also made in China) The recommendation to wash your hands following use should be adequate to protect from any slight dander this may pose. The situation is more serious in the children's toys we've all heard about recently because kids often have their fingers in their mouths while playing with the same toys. Walgreen's wouldn't unload a dangerous product at reduced prices and risk class action law suite. They would issue a recall if they thought it was warranted. Until this happens I'll continue using my Perfection steamer unless something more effective is found.
I agree that for some time now this thread has been seeming to take a somewhat paranoid or delusional turn. I've occasionally questioned my own state of mind for participating as well. I would urge all to refrain from personal attacks on any one person's sanity though. I have yet to meet anyone who couldn't be considered crazy in some way. We all spend our spare time obsessing over records after all.

I have been looking for lead in my power cord for years. (Sorry, that was just too easy).
I am sending this link to Larry David.
This is one of the most bizarre/funny threads that I have ever read. I can not wait to log on everyday. What a script, what characters! Priceless.

Lead content, prominently displayed on the package. I had wondered why no one had mentioned this fact until recently. That's exactly why I avoided the Perfection steamer and purchased the Steamfast SF275. Better build quality and with UL and the Good Housekeeping seals of approval. Plus, I think blue looks a lot nicer than red, FWIW.

I agree that this thread currently has no peer as to useful information and entertainment value. I've had my best results ever using steam as a cleaning method (thanks, Crem!). However, since I have no plan to chew on the power cord of my Perfection steamer (lead exposure pathways are primarily inhalation and ingestion, not dermal contact), I think I'll just hold onto it for now.

Don

I think I will hold on to my Perfection as well. I saw an episode of "Monk" last night where Monk was fondling some LP's at his assistant's house. If he started trying to clean them, I am sure he would get off on some kind of delusionary tangent like on this thread, it would be hilarious.
It seems that most record cleaning threads start out practical and then gradually migrate into the obsessive compulsive ether .
I like to keep my record cleaning down to less than two minutes per record, and the steam rinse method seems to be compatible with this goal.

Tvad, do yourself a favor. Buy another type of record cleaner cleaner. From the context of your posts, STEAMING IS NOT FOR YOU!!!!!!!! And probably no record cleaning system will satisfy you. Cd's might be a good venue for you or maybe bowling.