Record Cleaning

Posted by: John on 20 September 2001

I just bought a second hand copy of Ella & Louis and visually the record looked OK with no scratches. It sound bad however when I played it and after 2 cleanings with my VPI 16.5 it still doesn't sound that great. It has alot of surface noise and alot of cracking. Is there anything that can be done to revive it?

John

Posted on: 26 September 2001 by Former member

Hi John
Don't own a record cleaning machine yet myself but have had some success with washing problem LP's in warm water. Squirt some ordinary dishwashing liquid on the surfaces and gently spread it by hand. Submerge it in warm water and rinse off soap. I then spray warm water using the shower head to remove the last of the soap, place it on kitchen paper and pat dry and them finish off with a little iso propyl alcohol or just give it another run through your nachine.
Sounds drastic but it can be done gently and does work. If this fails it could have been wrecked by a poor quality stylus/turntable and there's no cure for that.
Stephan

Posted on: 28 September 2001 by Former member

I've also used the fairy liquid & warm water treatment to good effect on second hand dusty and greasy lps.

A solution based on distilled water and alcohol is probably better though.

I dry them by placing them between a few sheets of newspaper and leaving them for a few days.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/fluids.html
has some more info

Paul

Posted on: 28 September 2001 by garyi

A drop of vinagar in some warm water and gentle cleaning has improved some of my records, (No excuses here though i trashed them, damn my youth)