What's in your record cleaning machine????

I use a 20% isopropyl alcohol (91%), 80% distilled water mixture.

Record Research Super Deep Cleaner and Super Record Wash.

I have become a true believer!

I follow Chris Brady's method: (taken from http://www.teresaudio.com/haven/cleaner/cleaner.html)

For the record cleaning fluid I use Laura Dearbon's formula from her book "Good Sound". There are a number of other formulas that could also be used. The following is quoted from Laura's book (without permission, of course).

The safe formula is the same as archival commercial preparations, except that you are mixing it yourself and therefore it costs you a fraction of the price of ready mixed. It can be used for both hand and vacuum cleaning. It is a 25 percent solution of isopropyl alcohol in water, with a drop of surfacant. Ethyl alcohol, sometimes applied to records in the form of vodka is more damaging to vinyl than is isopropyl. Use it only in an absolute pinch.

Drugstore isopropyl contains too many impurities to qualify it for record cleaning. Use technical or lab-grade isopropyl, which is extremely pure. Reagent grade is unnecessary and far more expensive. Water should be steam distilled, triple de-ionized. Both of these are readily available at a chemical supply house, which should sell them to you in pint and gallon sizes.

You also need to add a drop of surfacant, or wetting agent, to reduce the surface tension of the water so the formula can penetrate down into the grooves. Very high frequency grooves, in the range of 15 kHz, can be as small as four millionths of an inch, according to Wald Davies of LAST. Though alcohol itself helps somewhat, you still need a wetting agent. Two excellent and safe choices are Triton X-114 from Rohm-Haas and Monolan 2000 from Diamond Shamrock. Both of these are nontoxic - but don't take them internally - and biodegradable. Very importantly, they leave behind no residue on the record. They are harmless in these small amounts to record vinyl and, as far as is known, to any of the conceivable by-products and impurities likely to be found in record vinyl.

Kodak's Kodaflow is sometimes recommended as a wetting agent. Do *not* use this as it contains chemicals in addition to surfacants that would leave behind residues bad for both record and stylus. Kodak recommends against this application.

(taken from http://www.teresaudio.com/haven/cleaner/cleaner.html)

BTW, I have extra Triton X-114, and if you are from Chicago areas, I can give you some, free!

I've been using the following cleaning solution for more than 30 years, with very good results: 25% isopropyl alcohol (99% pure); 75% distilled water; and 8-10 drops of Triton surfactant.

I thought you were asking what's in the machine itself. I confess to some curiosity about that since my prehistoric Nitty Gritty (serial # 134) has no way to empty out the water and collected schmutz. When it finally conks (going on 21 years so far), I figured I'd invite the media and open it up, sorta like Al Capone's vault.

No, it doesnm't smell.

Record Research Labs Super Vinyl Wash.

I'll second Dan_ed. Record Research made a real believer out of me too.

Regards,
John

Dopogue: know what you mean, just where does all the fluid go? it rarely if ever puddles out on the bottom tray. I've got a Nitty Gritty 2.5fi I think, with the oak sides. broke the center spindle, had to buy a kit to fix it, still going strong after 15 yrs.

Record Research Super Deep Cleaner and Super Vinyl Wash. AA Record Doctor II RCM.