Cleaning vinyl with wood glue

[CharmNewton]

Searching out information on magnetic tape recording led to a YouTube search for video of or about Jack Mullin which led to this video on cleaning vinyl:



Looks like it requires some care, but the before and after shows marked improvement. Anyone here have experience with this method or using record cleaning machines and the results achieved?

John

[John F]

There are all kinds of methods for cleaning LPs and 78s, some of them pretty strange, but this do beat all. Not on my records, thank you - I have other methods that work well enough for me.

(He sure let a lot of dust pile up on that LP before finally getting around to cleaning it. That shouldn't happen.)

[bigshot]

I use white vinegar rinsed with distilled water. Works great. Smells like pickles.

[erato]

A wellknown method in hifi circles.

[Wallingford]

I once knew a guy who used lighter fluid.

[Chalkperson]

I once knew a guy who used lighter fluid.

I used Lighter Fluid on all my Simon Rattle LP's, then I set fire to them...

[RebLem]

(He sure let a lot of dust pile up on that LP before finally getting around to cleaning it. That shouldn't happen.)

You shouldn't make assumptions like this. Maybe he bought the record at a garage or estate sale.

[CharmNewton]

There are all kinds of methods for cleaning LPs and 78s, some of them pretty strange, but this do beat all. Not on my records, thank you - I have other methods that work well enough for me.

(He sure let a lot of dust pile up on that LP before finally getting around to cleaning it. That shouldn't happen.)

This looked interesting as it seems to leave nothing behind. In ths video, the vinyl looked renewed.

I've found vinyl second hand that looked looked good with very nice jackets, but didn't play well. I wondered if they had been treated with one of the inexpensive products widely available for cleaning records.

I was hoping some of the members had experience with record cleaning machines and how well they performed.

John

[mikealdren]

There used to be a commercial product that spread as a liquid and dried to a clear film which you peeled off leaving a clean disk. A similar process. It worked well and I found it worked even better if the disk was cleaned with isopropyl alcohol first and then the liquid was applied before the alcohol dried. Long time ago and I can't remember the product name now.

There was also a roller with a sticky tape that you rolled across the disk to pick up, not quite so successful.

Mike

[maestrob]

I always found that "cleaning" records with some sort of fluid or treated cloth made matters worse, so I ended up using a dry brush when needed. The best method for keeping records clean, I found, was keeping them in their covers (both paper and cardboard).

Many issues were pressed with worn masters or on second-grade vinyl (record clubs were particularly egregious, as were RCA and Angel records.). My solution was to return several copies until I got a tape dubbing of each movement with good sound. European pressings were generally better quality than American ones.

In order to minimize wear and tear, I used to make Dolbyized reel-to-reel copies and play those. Later discs from 1975 on on the deluxe labels were more expensive, had better sound (the DBX discs on Vox and others were fantastic), but lacked top-grade artists.

Dealing with records was a true pain in the neck, and sound correctors such as the autocorrelator and pop & tick eliminators worked only partially.

As you've probably guessed, I was glad to see vinyl disappear. Obsessively cleaning them and exchanging them to improve the sound was a real drag, and I'm glad to be out of that game.

[RebLem]

There are all kinds of methods for cleaning LPs and 78s, some of them pretty strange, but this do beat all. Not on my records, thank you - I have other methods that work well enough for me.

(He sure let a lot of dust pile up on that LP before finally getting around to cleaning it. That shouldn't happen.)

This looked interesting as it seems to leave nothing behind. In ths video, the vinyl looked renewed.

I've found vinyl second hand that looked looked good with very nice jackets, but didn't play well. I wondered if they had been treated with one of the inexpensive products widely available for cleaning records.

I was hoping some of the members had experience with record cleaning machines and how well they performed.John

There is a video on the Princeton Record Exchange website. Actually, there are a number of videos. The whole deal lasts a couple hours. After you play the first one, though, the others appear on a menu. One of them deals with how they clean vinyl using a professional record cleaning machine tha costs about $5-600.

[Wallingford]

My personal advice?

Go hunt up some 35-year-old bottles of Sound Guard record cleaner....you can use them with a DiscWasher pad (I did). Sound Guard was especially good at temporarily restoring the sound on grimy records--at lease they kept the signal-to-noise ratio at a somewhat listenable level for at least one playing. What I did was give these dirtier discs a bath as well (hand-massaging is a must!), when doing this temporary restoration work.

Sound Guard's hard to get on the internet nowadays and comes rather pricey, but they don't lose their stuff, even after three and a half decades.

Great on newer and near-mint discs, too.