Record Cleaner Advice?

@pindac,

For routine cleaning, you do not need to soak the record with White Distilled Vinegar for 15-30 minutes.  That time comes from the book "VIII.12. DESCALING: Occasionally when resurrecting a Goodwill™ or flea market record find, there may be evidence of scale – such as hard water mineral spots...".

For routine cleaning - I only do 2-4 minutes.  The following info is not yet in the book:

After a chance review of this thread https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php ... t-14577762 and while I question the validity of the source of the carbonates, it occurred to me that what I am seeing as ref PACVR 2nd Ed Chapter/para IV.6 & Figure 10 is very tightly adherent non-organic/mineral based particles. These type particles are natural to the environment; known as aerosols https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/globa ... 2_M_AER_RA. So its entirely feasible that these particle 'may' be in the ambient of record pressing factories (except QRP - http://www.qualityrecordpressings.com/i ... =standards which appear pressed in a very clean environment); and can be essentially be pressed into the record. These type particles are not going to be easily removed.

Carbonates fluoresce intensely white and noting that I do inspect records with a 10 watt UV light, and it now occurred to me that the intense white specs that I am seeing on 'some' records may be inorganic salts/minerals. And, this debris that fluoresce intensely is not removed by multiple detergent washes and multiple rinses (with brush & flowing water). However, a weak acid can dissolve mineral type particles, especially very small (<5 microns) particles that can dissolve quickly. So after pre-clean with Alconox Liquinox I now do a pre-clean with White Distilled Vinegar (WDV) 5% acidity of which I add 4-5 drops Tergitol 15-S-9 to 1-pint WDV so that the WDV wets the record. I spray-on and gently agitate with Record Dr. nylon brush for 2-4 minutes. The results are good to excellent. WDV is unique - its a weak acid, its acetic acid that is fermented from ethanol and is also known as ethanolic acid and its very pure with almost no non-volatile residue (NVR); rinses easily and is cheap and readily available. After WDV pre-clean, I final clean and rinse.

Otherwise, good to hear you are getting good results.  

Stay well,
Neil

@ antinn
Hi Neil 
            Thank You for continued Support.
My 40ish Years Old 'Wish You Were Here' Album has been a excellent cleaning success.
When Listened to at Xmas it was a real concern.
Now I am willing to take it to other systems to use iot for a replay.

The (WDV) requiring less time that I have allocated to the soak is a nice turnout, for the future operations.

I did not inform on the use of the 1.5 Litre (3 Pint) Pressurised Bottle in use.
With a Nozzle set to produce a Funnel of Mist, it is a very nice rinse method and conservative with the amount of water used to flush the surface.
If more impact of the Water as a flush method is preferred                          and Water conservation is not too much of a concern,                            the Nozzle set to a Jet is the tool for this.  
  
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I recently bought about 50 records at a garage sale and most if not all were plagued with fingerprints. It varied from a few to practically covered in them. First of all as a record user and fan, there is no excuse for putting a finger anywhere on the surface of a record. Garage sale records being sold at a few cents each I can excuse but I have also bought records from sellers with fingerprints. That is inexcusable. Being faced with all these records to clean fingerprints from and as a fan of solutions without alcohol and being very low on my usual Disc Doctor fluid I tried some new lens cleaner I have called Bi-Oh! made by a Canadian company.

It works with an enzyme formula to remove oils and I was more than pleased with how it worked. I’d wipe the record with a micro fibre cloth and distilled water, spray the Bi-Oh! on it and spread it with a cleaning pad, then wipe with a cloth and distilled water. Then a dry cloth to dry it with. The ones worth it, I then ran through my ultrasonic but even without that, the results were great with just the manual cleaning. My small bottle of solution ran out so I found a supplier and ordered 2 - 450ml bottles. Info here: Bi-Oh!

Wanted to say thanks to Neil for sharing his mixes.

I have been using AIVS #15 and the super cleaner. I think Neil's mix with DWV was able to remove some additional record noise the AIVS could not. Using a KAB RCM. Eyeing a 132kHz UCM to see if I can get even further noise out of some records.

 

Such an addiction for the perfect sound...😎

 

Cheers!

@fj40jason, 

There have been some updates - instead of DWV, now using Alconox Citranox (mixed 1.5%) - all details are in the 3rd Ed - Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records-3rd Edition - The Vinyl Press.

Take Care,