Vinyl Cleaning

Rushton: good to know someone else uses essentially the same solution. The formula I use was provided to me by a now deceased friend, who made a part-time living buying estate collections of LP's and re-selling them -- mainly to the Japanese collector market. My friend David probably cleaned 30,000 LP's over a 15-year period using the formula I recommend, and he never had any problems with it. Furthermore, this solution tastes GREAT -- and, it's less filling!

Sdcampbell: At one time I recall Anthony Cordesman describing essentially this same formula in a TAS article. Interesting how information seems to get shared in this small community of ours.

I use Divinyl Lp Cleaner, it works great even on the dirtiest records. It can be found on the seller's online store or Amazon.
Cheers

sdcampbell

Rushton: good to know someone else uses essentially the same solution ... this solution tastes GREAT -- and, it’s less filling!

I know you probably intended this to be amusing, but it isn’t. Isopropyl alcohol - which Rushton uses - is a poison. It can be deadly.

@wags....

My educated opinion and personal experience.....

Before figuring out what mix to use or what formula to put on your precious vinyl records, it is necessary to determine what needs to be cleaned from the grooves. It makes NO sense to create some kind of formula that does NOT dissolve or clean that material from the surface of the vinyl or, even worse, a material that could damage the record.

Another factor is that the plasticizers used in vinyl records can be dissolved from the matrix by isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol) leaving the record susceptible to damage or accelerated wear.

Is there anyone in this thread or other similar threads that talk about the contaminants in the grooves and what kind of solvent is needed to remove that material? Does anyone even bring up the biggest culprit: mold release?

So rather than figuring out what to use, it might be more desirable to just buck up to the bar and buy a commercial record cleaner such as one sold by Disc Doctor. Those formulas have been developed and tested to provide groove cleaning for the contaminating substances that may exist in the grooves.