Cleaning old vinyl

A problem with the liquid cleaning solutions also is that you will have to keep using it. A record played with the stuff a few times and then without will sound less.

I have heard people in the old days who cleaned their records with a mild dish washing solution (it is especially effective against (finger)grease apparently), then rinsing it thoroughly and finally air drying them. The trick is to get rid of the grease and muck (dish washer fluid) and making sure there is not residu left in the groove after everything is all dried up (the rinsing phase). I never used this method, I just played them as they were. Unless they got ticks/audible scratches, in which case they got tossed and replace by a new copy. I can see how, for a one time ripping action, you’d want them to sound as good as you can get them.

The most important thing to prevent is static build-up. It really increases the collection of dust attracted to the vinyl which will get collected by the stylus and finally become that nice little ball of wool that is pulled around the groove.
I know there are carbon fibre brushes that you can use, not sure how effective they are though. Also heard of slipmats with carbon fibre in them that are supposed to get rid of static build-up. Again, most of those remedies never made it into any serious DJ booth, so I can’t really vouch for their effectivity.

Another thing to watch for is to go (way) lower on the needle pressure and accompanying anti-skating. Since you won’t be moving the turntables at all, nor trying to scratch, backspin or do other crazy stuff you don’t have to worry about the pressure. Obviously you WILL need to apply an appropriate pressure for the stylus you are using. Many DJ stylii are produced so they can easily withstand the high needle pressure, the trade-off being that they don’t produce too well at lower pressure.

Finally, don’t get tempted to use moving coil instead of moving magnet for your 12″s. The dance tracks on 12″ have been recorded with enhanced bass (in general) and sometimes higher dynamics (early compression techniques). Moving coil is made to handle very delicate source material and is great for reproducing especially the low volume bits. I have found on occasion that MC isn’t all that great for handling high level low frequency signal.

Just my two cents, hope it helps (some).

Greetinx,
C.

If you really want to go the extra mile and aren’t squeamish, there’s the wood glue method.

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I haven’t yet tried this since all my vinyls are fairly new and methods this drastic haven’t been required.

They theory is solid though. The chemical composition of the wood glue does not react with the vinyl. Assuming don’t you spill the glue and make a mess, the glue should form a membrane you can peel right off.

I am guessing it really has to do a lot with the viscosity (?) of the glue. It really needs to go deep enough into the groove. If it is too “thick” it wouldn’t. Wood glue is pretty liquid and does make a film, so I am guessing it could work. However, it will take care of residu left in the groove. I can’t see it preventing dust to be attracted to the vinyl as soon as you take the film off. I also can’t see it do anything for greasy finger spots.

And it is incredibly slow. Waiting 30+ hours per record? Not sure how your living situation is, but I could spread out maybe 10-15 records at a time (and with great risk to my relationship). Doing your entire 150+ collection would require 10-15 times 30 hours (in my case) = 400 – 450 hours, or 2,4-2,7 weeks LOL.

I think I would have the guts to do it. I would do a rip before and a rip after though. Worse comes to worse you have at least one good rip :-).

Greetinx,
C.

LOL