@billstevenson Adding a small amount of lab grade ethyl alcohol to your final rinse will improve the groove wetting by lowering the surface tension and will improve the effectiveness of your final rinse, audibly so to my ears.
Record Cleaning Using Vacuum Machine for Cleaning and Ultrasonic for Final Rinse
Readers unfamiliar should reference Precision Aqueous Cleaning of : Vinyl Records by Neil Anton, 3rd Edition, March 2024 available for free on line. It will provide specific details that I will reference in passing here for brevity. Specifically, look at Chapter III - Solution Preparation; Chapter VIII - Vacuum Cleaning Machines; and Chapter IX - Ultrasonic Cleaning Machines.
Summary of Methodology (for very dirty records):1. Preclean 2. Pre-Wash 3. Rinse 4. Vacuum (partial) 5. Tergitol clean 6. Vacuum (partial) 7. Ultrsonic Final Rinse (2minutes) 8. Final Vacuum Dry
Summary of Methodology (for new to v.good records): 1.Tergitol clean 2. Vacuum (partial) 3. Ultrasonic Final Rinse (2minutes) 4. Final Vacuum Dry
Materials Used: Distilled Water obtained for local grocery store, Tergitol 15-S-9 (0,5ml/L); Liquinox (5ml/L).
Machines: VPI MW-1 Cyclone; HumminGuru Nova
Brushes: Osage, VPI, Record Doctor
Showing 2 responses by orthomead
@antinn Of course you are correct. I guess I was thinking primarily of the rinse. Of interest, there was a thread on the internet about 10 years ago where the author (I cannot remember his name) did a fairly detailed side by side comparison of rinse (only) between IPA and ethanol and concluded that sonically the ETOH was superior. I have adopted that since, but I think it was more opinion and not science based. I mentioned it only because the OP noted that distilled water alone didn't penetrate the grooves. So I guess it's safe to say that adding some IPA or ETOH will likely help with the rinse. @billstevenson I have used both IPA and ETOH in several different ultrasonic baths without problem. I contacted the folks at Degritter and they stated ETOH was not a problem in their machine, as long as the concentration was below the flash point that Neil outlines well in his book. It definitely improves wetability which I think is advantageous for a final rinse. I have had no problems whatsoever with this approach with over 2500 cleanings and 3 different ultrasonic machines and consider it safe. Also, the cleaning solution for the Clearaudio double matrix allows for ETOH to be added. |