vinyl liquid cleaner

Staffy, there are lots of record cleaning fluid formulas out there; of the isoprop formulas, some recommend 1 part isoprop to 10 parts distilled water, others 1 to 5.  I usually go with the latter, along with a few drops of Ilford photoflo. 

Most of my LPs have only ever been cleaned the once - some twice but rarely ever more than that.  Just be sure to slip them inside a nice new Nagaoka sleeve (or similar - the Nagaokas slide inside original inners very nicely) to ensure they are not contaminated by the old inner sleeve.

n.b. This is for a vacuum unit - I use a very old Nitty Gritty that is still doing a good job even after a few thousand LPs.  Your Knosti may have different requirements.  

My local vinyl outlet maintains that just using a small amount of water with a tiny drop of fairy liquid, and a good rinse off, is the best method. I've tried it and the results are very very good.

Regarding how often? I usually clean my vinyl only if it needs it, which seems to be very infrequently. 

wenger2015 posted:

My local vinyl outlet maintains that just using a small amount of water with a tiny drop of fairy liquid, and a good rinse off, is the best method. I've tried it and the results are very very good.

For hands that do dishes are as a soft as my Rega with mild green fairy liquid.  LOL

I also have a Knosti washer. Firstly I didn't like the look of the liquid that came with it. Far too gooey to put on records in my opinion. 

Interesting that iso propyl is being suggested. Alright for use once but not regularly I would have thought.

Fairy Liquid gets my vote, but you should only wash records once every year or two at most. No matter what you use, repeated washing over a short period of time has proved damaging in my experience, especially using any amount of alcohol.

i use L'Art du Son. A mix of 20 ml per litre of de-ionised water should clean 50 records.

Diverse Vinyl of Newport sells the fluid 

+1 with Richard on the use of Nagaoka inner sleeves or similar. I find it so annoying that some of these expensive re- issues on 180g vinyl have such dreadful inner sleeves. Dire Straits are truly dire in this respect. Pink Floyd just as bad

I've used 25% propan-2-ol since l got my 16.5(VPI) and it does the job most of the time. There are a few records that have defeated that mix and one of them beat an audiodesk. I recently bought a bottle of nitty gritty enzyme cleaner and its got the blighter clean at last. Too expensive for regular use tjough and it needs a second clean to remove the residue but a good last resort.

With fairy liquid you can clean twice as many records compared to other brands.......lol

staffy posted:

I love using the Knosti vinyl machine ..lol...   However I have ran out of liquid.  Can anyone tell me what mixture levels to use of isopropyl in order to clean about 40 albums.

As a matter of interest how often to people clean their vinyl collection.

what I strongly suggest is a second Knosti to rinse previously washed records. concerning the mixture, I personally use isopropyl/distilled water: 3/10 (washing) and 1/10 or less (rinse).

regards,

Stefano

essezeta posted:

staffy posted:

I love using the Knosti vinyl machine ..lol...   However I have ran out of liquid.  Can anyone tell me what mixture levels to use of isopropyl in order to clean about 40 albums.

As a matter of interest how often to people clean their vinyl collection.

what I strongly suggest is a second Knosti to rinse previously washed records. concerning the mixture, I personally use isopropyl/distilled water: 3/10 (washing) and 1/10 or less (rinse).

regards,

Stefano

Hi Stefano,  I purchased a plastic container similar to the knosti.  I then give the LP's a second going over or rinse would be a better word.  For the rinse I just use distilled water.   I then let the disc's dry overnight.

Belfast Taxman posted:

...
Interesting that iso propyl is being suggested. Alright for use once but not regularly I would have thought.
...

Using cold isopropanol (propan-2-ol) is fine, certainly up to 50% as it's a poor solvent for vinyl (and vinyl-acetate copolymers).

staffy posted:

essezeta posted:

staffy posted:

I love using the Knosti vinyl machine ..lol...   However I have ran out of liquid.  Can anyone tell me what mixture levels to use of isopropyl in order to clean about 40 albums.

As a matter of interest how often to people clean their vinyl collection.

what I strongly suggest is a second Knosti to rinse previously washed records. concerning the mixture, I personally use isopropyl/distilled water: 3/10 (washing) and 1/10 or less (rinse).

regards,

Stefano

Hi Stefano,  I purchased a plastic container similar to the knosti.  I then give the LP's a second going over or rinse would be a better word.  For the rinse I just use distilled water.   I then let the disc's dry overnight.

try to add a little isopropyl to distilled water for the rinse. it will help drying.

regards,

Stefano

Personally for the final rinse I'd just use clean deionised (or better still distilled) water.

Clean vinyl has a very low wettability with clean water (i.e. a relatively large contact angle) - so let physics do a lot of the drying for you.  Then just absorb the remainder from the surface using a clean lint free cloth (don't use fabric conditioner!).  Adding a wetting agent or isopropanol to the final rinse will mean that more of the final rinse solution is left on the surface of the record, and hence more deposits from it.