Post by ajski2fly on Nov 1, 2020 17:27:46 GMT
Thought I would post this as it may be useful to those getting back into or just getting into vinyl. I have tried many different methods of record cleaning over the last 6 years, primarily as a result of purchasing a large number of used LPs from 2nd hand and charity shop, and being given 3 record collections from friends originating back to the 60's and 70's. I started with the Knosti- Anti Stat, and various cleaning solutions, there own, L'Art Du Son, 80% Distilled H2O with 20% mix of Isopropyl Alcohol(99% purity), some Nitty H2O to try and stop any residue.
After the Knostic I moved onto making my own vacuum machine with a modified wet/dry hoover(£40 from Argos), the wand is modified with a slit in it and a hole at the tip to go over a turntable spindle, to protect this from damaging the record a 50mm velvet ribbon is glue over the slit and a slit cut in it. I use an old Sony TT with the arm ripped off it, and a have made a dense sponge rubber support for the vacuum wand. After applying cleaning fluid to the record and using an appropriate brush I then vacuum the record manually spinning it. This process I have found to be reasonably successful but not with very grubby records that have have hard life in smoke filled rooms or been subjected to greasy fingers, I suspect this leads to engrained dirt in the groove stuck to it. So some records even after 3 or 4 cleans using both the L'Art Son and IPA mix and rinsing off never really cleaned up fully.
So I spent several months reading on the net and looking into record cleaner machines, cleaning solutions, and different approaches to try and find what most people considered the best, I came to the conclusion that Ultrasonic cleaning with the appropriate fluid mix was likely to get the best results, and to supplement this with rinsing and vacuum drying.
So here is what I have ended up with:--
Ultrasonic Cleaner www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Monday last week the U/S cleaner arrived from Amazon, it is supplied by LBSEU in Shenzhen, China (although manufactured by Codyson, a specialist in ultrasonic equipment codyson.net/Product/370474.html), Amazon fulfilled the supply. It is advertised as being able to clean 10 records and pictures clearly show this, this is facilitated by a specific 10 records extension kit that extends the 5 record shaft and come with 10 additional record label protectors and and a support bracket for the shaft to rest on. Unfortunately on unpacking I found the extension kit was missing, rather disappointing. So I contacted Amazon and I had to return it and wait for a replacement, Amazon saying it was likely there had been a mistake with the order.
Yesterday the replacement arrived and yes you have guessed it no extension kit to enable cleaning of 10 records. So back onto Amazon and they have checked on the supplier and as they have near 100% feedback and have previously correct issues with orders are in the process of contacting them to resolve, so fingers crossed.
Anyway I decided that I would try out the unit as it is here, and below are my findings.
Firstly the unit seems to be very well made, and is a bit less utilitarian than a lot of ultrasonic cleaners on the market. The record holder is quite well made, and the record label protectors work very well, and stop any fluid getting on the labels. The motor seems to be very powerful and spins at a sensible speed. Loading records is relatively simple, by having the motor assembly on the supplied bracket in the upright position, record protection discs and records can then easily be loaded and finally the knurled nut tightened to clamp the 5 records. You then simply lower the records into the cleaning bath by rotating it through 90 degrees. The unit also comes with plastic spacers so any number of records from 1-5 can be cleaned as required.
This unit has a preset maximum temperature of 40 degrees and will cut out if that is reached. It defaults to 5 minutes cleaning cycle, but can be raised or lowered as necessary, it switches off with a buzzer at the set time.
The cleaning fluid I have decided to use is from a recipe that I found was being used by several record enthusiasts and the mixture was advised by a chemist. It is 5.7L of Distilled Water, 300ml of 99% Isopropyl Alcohol, 9ml of a premixed Triton X100 solution(surfactant) see below. This gives about 0.15% concentration of Trition X100, which is more than enough, it is highly concentrated and powerful in its pure form! If you are not keen on IPA then replace it with distilled H2O, although it does aid in grease deposit breakdown, fingerprints etc.
Note - Triton X100 is a very powerful surfactant used in Labs to scrupulously clean and destroy bacteria, viruses and living matter(cells), so DO NOT get it on your hands, wear gloves, read the safety instructions.
Important - Triton Solution mix 5 ml (1 teaspoon) of Triton X-100 with 45 ml (9 teaspoons) of Distilled Water.
I selected a batch of 10 records that I knew I was not happy with from my previous cleaning attempts, 3 in particular had that annoying background crackle/pop that was possibly due to groove dirt, and possibly nicotine from smokey environments. The other 7 were not perfect just had some occasional crackle/pops with no sign of surface marks.
On went the first batch of 5 records into the above solution for 5 minutes, once done I popped them out onto a Knosti record rack and put the next 5 records, whilst they were spinning I rinsed off the first batch with Distilled H2O/ILFORD ILFOTOL WETTING AGENT, (500ml distilled H2O with 2ml ILFORD ILFOTOL) and then hoovered off.
The result.
All the records looked spotlessly clean with not one fingerprint left in sight, in fact they all looked virtually new.
Led Zeppelin III, this has been an annoying record for me which was given to me, it looks in VG+ condition but had relatively high levels of background crackle pop even after previously having been cleaned 3 times. After the Ultrasound clean there was a huge improvement, the sound floor, and dynamics being greatly improved, but there was still some crackle pop in place although much reduced.
Sinead O'Connor a similar issue to the above and once again a big improvement.
Alice Cooper - Love it To Death, a favourite of mine but with background noise previously, after U/S cleaning like a new record, quite amazing.
Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue, a VG+ record but with background noise here and there, now no groove noises, near silence between tracks and great dynamics.
I cleaned some more records and re-cleaned Led Zep III, and Sinead O'Connor and now they are very acceptable, the are a few pops on both probably due to surface scratches, but completely listenable and enjoyable now.
So to sum up, this is the most successful record cleaning I have ever done and some records are now playing like new, so I would recommend anyone who wants to get the most form their vinyl to get an Ultrasound cleaner. At present I can clean and rinse dry around 20 records in an hour, which is reasonably acceptable if you have lot to do.
By the way the ILFORD ILFOTOL also acts as a anti-static treatment so is worth using and it can be added to the Ultrasound solution as well, you would need 25-30ml to 6L for this. 6L of cleaning solution in the Ultrasound unit should be good for 50 to 100 records depending on how dirty they are to start with, I will stick to 50 records per batch.
I hope some of you find this useful.
After the Knostic I moved onto making my own vacuum machine with a modified wet/dry hoover(£40 from Argos), the wand is modified with a slit in it and a hole at the tip to go over a turntable spindle, to protect this from damaging the record a 50mm velvet ribbon is glue over the slit and a slit cut in it. I use an old Sony TT with the arm ripped off it, and a have made a dense sponge rubber support for the vacuum wand. After applying cleaning fluid to the record and using an appropriate brush I then vacuum the record manually spinning it. This process I have found to be reasonably successful but not with very grubby records that have have hard life in smoke filled rooms or been subjected to greasy fingers, I suspect this leads to engrained dirt in the groove stuck to it. So some records even after 3 or 4 cleans using both the L'Art Son and IPA mix and rinsing off never really cleaned up fully.
So I spent several months reading on the net and looking into record cleaner machines, cleaning solutions, and different approaches to try and find what most people considered the best, I came to the conclusion that Ultrasonic cleaning with the appropriate fluid mix was likely to get the best results, and to supplement this with rinsing and vacuum drying.
So here is what I have ended up with:--
Ultrasonic Cleaner www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Monday last week the U/S cleaner arrived from Amazon, it is supplied by LBSEU in Shenzhen, China (although manufactured by Codyson, a specialist in ultrasonic equipment codyson.net/Product/370474.html), Amazon fulfilled the supply. It is advertised as being able to clean 10 records and pictures clearly show this, this is facilitated by a specific 10 records extension kit that extends the 5 record shaft and come with 10 additional record label protectors and and a support bracket for the shaft to rest on. Unfortunately on unpacking I found the extension kit was missing, rather disappointing. So I contacted Amazon and I had to return it and wait for a replacement, Amazon saying it was likely there had been a mistake with the order.
Yesterday the replacement arrived and yes you have guessed it no extension kit to enable cleaning of 10 records. So back onto Amazon and they have checked on the supplier and as they have near 100% feedback and have previously correct issues with orders are in the process of contacting them to resolve, so fingers crossed.
Anyway I decided that I would try out the unit as it is here, and below are my findings.
Firstly the unit seems to be very well made, and is a bit less utilitarian than a lot of ultrasonic cleaners on the market. The record holder is quite well made, and the record label protectors work very well, and stop any fluid getting on the labels. The motor seems to be very powerful and spins at a sensible speed. Loading records is relatively simple, by having the motor assembly on the supplied bracket in the upright position, record protection discs and records can then easily be loaded and finally the knurled nut tightened to clamp the 5 records. You then simply lower the records into the cleaning bath by rotating it through 90 degrees. The unit also comes with plastic spacers so any number of records from 1-5 can be cleaned as required.
This unit has a preset maximum temperature of 40 degrees and will cut out if that is reached. It defaults to 5 minutes cleaning cycle, but can be raised or lowered as necessary, it switches off with a buzzer at the set time.
The cleaning fluid I have decided to use is from a recipe that I found was being used by several record enthusiasts and the mixture was advised by a chemist. It is 5.7L of Distilled Water, 300ml of 99% Isopropyl Alcohol, 9ml of a premixed Triton X100 solution(surfactant) see below. This gives about 0.15% concentration of Trition X100, which is more than enough, it is highly concentrated and powerful in its pure form! If you are not keen on IPA then replace it with distilled H2O, although it does aid in grease deposit breakdown, fingerprints etc.
Note - Triton X100 is a very powerful surfactant used in Labs to scrupulously clean and destroy bacteria, viruses and living matter(cells), so DO NOT get it on your hands, wear gloves, read the safety instructions.
Important - Triton Solution mix 5 ml (1 teaspoon) of Triton X-100 with 45 ml (9 teaspoons) of Distilled Water.
I selected a batch of 10 records that I knew I was not happy with from my previous cleaning attempts, 3 in particular had that annoying background crackle/pop that was possibly due to groove dirt, and possibly nicotine from smokey environments. The other 7 were not perfect just had some occasional crackle/pops with no sign of surface marks.
On went the first batch of 5 records into the above solution for 5 minutes, once done I popped them out onto a Knosti record rack and put the next 5 records, whilst they were spinning I rinsed off the first batch with Distilled H2O/ILFORD ILFOTOL WETTING AGENT, (500ml distilled H2O with 2ml ILFORD ILFOTOL) and then hoovered off.
The result.
All the records looked spotlessly clean with not one fingerprint left in sight, in fact they all looked virtually new.
Led Zeppelin III, this has been an annoying record for me which was given to me, it looks in VG+ condition but had relatively high levels of background crackle pop even after previously having been cleaned 3 times. After the Ultrasound clean there was a huge improvement, the sound floor, and dynamics being greatly improved, but there was still some crackle pop in place although much reduced.
Sinead O'Connor a similar issue to the above and once again a big improvement.
Alice Cooper - Love it To Death, a favourite of mine but with background noise previously, after U/S cleaning like a new record, quite amazing.
Miles Davis - Kind Of Blue, a VG+ record but with background noise here and there, now no groove noises, near silence between tracks and great dynamics.
I cleaned some more records and re-cleaned Led Zep III, and Sinead O'Connor and now they are very acceptable, the are a few pops on both probably due to surface scratches, but completely listenable and enjoyable now.
So to sum up, this is the most successful record cleaning I have ever done and some records are now playing like new, so I would recommend anyone who wants to get the most form their vinyl to get an Ultrasound cleaner. At present I can clean and rinse dry around 20 records in an hour, which is reasonably acceptable if you have lot to do.
By the way the ILFORD ILFOTOL also acts as a anti-static treatment so is worth using and it can be added to the Ultrasound solution as well, you would need 25-30ml to 6L for this. 6L of cleaning solution in the Ultrasound unit should be good for 50 to 100 records depending on how dirty they are to start with, I will stick to 50 records per batch.
I hope some of you find this useful.
