Is this the solution to LP static issues?? Seems to be!


Last night i was listening to a superb original RCA white dog pressing of Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte ( if you can source this, i highly recommend it!) 
I noticed that all of my prior LP's were exhibiting considerable static attraction to my felt mat on my LP12. Not this one!!! How come, since the LP was played at the same time as the others, in the same system, the same room temperature etc.?? I noticed on the cover of the album the following large sticker: Miracle Surface, This record contains the revolutionary new antistatic ingredient, 317X, which helps keep the record dust free, helps prevent surface noise, helps insure faithful sound reproduction on Living Stereo.  

Whatever this additive is that was put on this album back in 1959 sure works well!! Anyone know what 317X is?? Why are we NOT using this stuff today??
daveyf

Showing 6 responses by mijostyn

Cleeds, I was simply responding to your comments which seem rather odd. At any rate your previous comments were a perversion of the subject at hand thus misleading. 

Antinn, CFCs were banned in certain high use applications such as air conditioners. The worry was that they were breaking down the Oxone layer. They are readily available in various forms used for other purposes. This is the one I use https://www.grainger.com/product/5YK77?gclid=CjwKCAiAq8f-BRBtEiwAGr3DgW8iLDfylpAiijn-6L6umNg4_a4W971...
CRC also makes a CFC free formulation (green bottle) This one might damage PVC I do not know but rest assured the CFC version does no immediate harm to PVC even if you soak the record for a week because unlike several commentators here I have done it.  As you note there are various CFCs with varying boiling points. The ones in use now have relatively high boiling points. 



daveyf, ok rice paper sleeves. I get the MoFi ones whatever they are. As long as they don't donate electrons you are in business.

You are so Victorian. What is so precious about a record (screams of agony) Take a piece of PVC pipe and throw it in a pot of Brake cleaning fluid. Let it sit there for a year. What happens? Absolutely nothing. Records are the same stuff (with a few different minor ingredients). You use "Last"? It is brake cleaning fluid. Same stuff is used for cleaning electronic parts. It is very inert but is a great solvent for non polar substances. It also has a very high vapor pressure and makes an excellent refrigerant. It is running around your car in rubber hoses heated to in excess of 200 degrees F. You are making an assumption (Brake cleaning fluid is bad for records) which is totally false and may be the exact opposite. This is the way myths get started. I greatly prefer observable reality when available. 
Cleeds, I was not cleaning new Analog Productions albums, I was treating them with what amounts to be very cheap "Last" I know for a fact there is nothing in Last other than the solvent. Some people swear it works. So in giving them credit I am testing out a pet theory. As you know PVC compound is 0.2 or 0.3 % plasticizer. It softens the PVC making it easier to press. Removing the plasticizer conversely hardens the PVC improving it's wear characteristics. You might also take a leap and hypothesize that PVC that is not so mushy sounds better. I'm not going to spend 50 bucks on a little bottle of chlorofluorocarbon solvent to run an experiment. Certain brands of Brake Cleaning fluid are nothing but CFC solvent. I keep a case of the stuff around for cleaning bike parts and stuff. So, I sprayed both sides of five records, let them dry and put them right away. Observation #1 is that this did absolutely no immediate harm to the records. They all sound just the same. And boy do they sparkle. In a year or two I will compare them to other Analog Productions records I have that I do not play near as much, see if there is any difference in wear. 

Daveyf, for 20 bucks you can buy one and try it. It won't be near the most expensive mistake you'll ever make. Of course, if your records are already a mess you might as well take them out back and power wash them.
Wow, cleeds, sir what planet are you living on. I don't know what you do but when I play a record it comes out of the sleeve directly onto the platter, the sweep arm is placed, the tonearm is cued and the dust cover goes right down. On the return trip the process is mirror imaged. The record is not in the open air for more that 20 seconds. A 1/2 hour?
There is one difference. After the record is away I wipe all that dust that I just ground into the record off the sweep arm (on a felt pad) I do not know which sweep arm you used but mine tracks with the tonearm perfectly and gets every spec of dust on the surface. I do have to be careful not to shake the brush when I remove it from the record or I wind up dusting the record. It is only older records I have not played for years that have any dust on them, contamination from the old paper sleeves. As I play them I am replacing all the old sleeves with new plastic ones. Records already updated have very little if any dust on them. The sweep usually comes off the record visibly clean.
If taken care of correctly a clean record should never get dirty other than incidental dust that can be easily removed with a brush or sweep arm.
Keeping the record free of static is part of this equation. Static will pull dust deep into the groove where it is more difficult to remove with a brush. Pollution in the air from smoke and/or cooking fumes is another problem that is easily avoided. 
As I have mentioned before I always use a conductive sweep arm during play and always keep the dust cover closed during play. Since I do not buy used records I have no use for a record cleaning machine. 
As an aside the 5 Analog Productions albums I sprayed off with brake cleaning fluid are doing just fine.

Hi antinn,
The relative humidity is dropping fast and I will start running my experiments again shortly. Static accumulation on records is a very complex issue. The environment, storage and how they are played all affect this. 
I was always led to believe that the stylus rubbing the groove was the primary motivator but then last Summer I played a record with and without the conductive sweep arm I always use and there was no static accumulation either way indicating that perhaps the cause of static lie elsewhere. I am about to perform the same experiment again at low humidity.
Having said all this, putting anything that leaves a residue on the records is a big mistake. It will only gum up your stylus. A clean record should never need to be cleaned. Always store records in static resistant plastic inner sleeves, never paper as paper will always increase static accumulation on vinyl.