Iread with interest the MAC Egroups discussion on the above subject. Having been an avid
vinyl collector I was having the same problem when I bought my Nitty Gritty 2.0 Record
cleaning machine on a trip to the US. The solutions I got with it, which I thought were
excellent were called PURIFIER 2 and FIRST. But you only get a small bottle and it
doesn’t last for long. So I had a cleaning machine but no fluid. What to do? I was
unable to buy anything that I thought would be any good, so I consulted all my magazines.
Well, I came up with this information.
Australian Hi Fi did an article by David Nicholls on cleaning records in the late
80’s. He recommended dry cleaning first with a velvet brush slightly dampened with
water, to clean of the surface grunge. Then wet clean with a mixture of:
1ml Teepol (Laboratory detergent)
3ml Isopropyl alcohol
50ml distilled water
The alcohol and the distilled water were easily to get but not the Teepol. So I had to
find an alternative.
I then consulted the "Sounds Like" magazine which wasn’t around for long,
to see what their recommendations were. After an 8 page article on the subject, and he
goes into a lot of chemical detail about the fluids and the vinyl, Myles Aster comes to
the conclusion that the VPI fluid is best followed by the Purifier 2. There were no home
brews. Listed below are the make up of the cleaners, although somewhat vague:
Purifier 2
Two alcohols
VPI
Distilled water
20% Isopropyl alcohol
Surfactants
Supercleaner
Deionised water
20% Reagent grade alcohol
Photoflow. (Kodak)
Having read all this information I decided to try out my own formulas. As you can’t
always get every ingredient.
My first try at record cleaning was in the sink full of warm water with a small amount of
velvet soap. Then wash in plain warm water and lay on a clean tea towel and pat dry with
another. It seemed to do the job. But I had 999 more records to go. So that idea got
scrapped. I might say that I always clean the LP with a brush before I play a record. I
started with cloths then brushes and finally found a velvet roll called a Parostatik (made
in the UK) about the size of thick sausage. It had a foam rod or wick in the middle which
you dampen with water. This kept the outside velvet moist which picked up the dust and
fluff etc. It was also impregnated with an ionic compound to prevent static build up. But
as I always used it at 33 1/3 speed it wouldn’t stop the static.
To counteract the static I have a Static Gun which does the job well. Called an Ortofon
Static-off Gun.
So having read the articles I looked around for the chemicals. All of the fluids were
mostly water so I had a start. Distilled water was the base then you needed something to
do some cleaning and then evaporate. So Isopropyl alcohol would do there. Then a wetting
agent to over come the surface tension of the water and get right into the grooves. The
only thing I could think of was Kodak Photo Flow which was used to stop air bubbles
sticking to the film when developing it. Then some sort of detergent to remove the oil
grime and other greasy marks. And this was the hard one, as most said they leave a residue
like Lanolin for your hands etc, so I decided on Nu Finish, a car wash. This left no
residue at all, it said. A clear liquid with no colouring or smell. On the Nitty Gritty
machine I use a velvet brush to wash the record following the grooves and then vacuum off
the liquid. And it seems to do a good job. The quantities are:
900ml Distilled water
100ml isopropyl alcohol
1 drop Nu Finish
2 drops Photo Flow
This seems to do the job on the records. Its amazing how some records look unplayable, but
after a clean, there is very little noise. There are always exceptions of course.
Graeme W