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How do you clean your records?

Ultrasonic Velvet Vortex here & DIY fluid. IPA+ Distilled water+ Ifotel at 30 degrees does a great job.
I've come from using Knosti with 2 baths, but there was often white crud left on the needle. Ultrasonic's reduced surface noise I often double take I've dropped the needle!

https://velvetvortex.com

Is that the one from WAM that I was thinking of? Can you tell me some more? I can see the appeal of ultrasonic cleaning but have zero experience, I was aware of a DIY approach on WAM that was nothing like the several £k they sell for elsewhere ... do tell!
 
I also use Scotch 3M 'Magic' tape - it is incredible stuff which lifts off specks of stuck of dirt (most times, but will not lift glue/nail varnish)

Maybe this was the stuff Pixell used for their roller cleaner. It worked well (but not into the grooves, understandably) but by heck it really did introduce static. The Pixell gun got rid of that, but what a palaver !
 
Maybe this was the stuff Pixell used for their roller cleaner. It worked well (but not into the grooves, understandably) but by heck it really did introduce static. The Pixell gun got rid of that, but what a palaver !

Naw, this is just regular 1" tape, I just break a small piece off, use and bin it. Absolutely no static introduced, I am not covering the playing surface in tape...

as previously stated, a wet-clean gets rid of static.
 
Is that the one from WAM that I was thinking of? Can you tell me some more? I can see the appeal of ultrasonic cleaning but have zero experience, I was aware of a DIY approach on WAM that was nothing like the several £k they sell for elsewhere ... do tell!

It is a DIY approach, websites are easy :D
Being simplistic its ultrasonic bath with 1rpm motor attached to spin records.

I do 3 at a time for 20 mins @ 30 degrees. I use my Knosti rack and find the 1st batch are dry in 60 mins. I use 20% IPA 80% distilled water with a couple of drops of Ifotel wetting agent.

Fluid is filtered after a couple of hours, discarded when its dirty/cloudy.

I've found it reduces surface noise, clicks and pops almost eliminated. I've had records that've jumped for years cleaned and play through. There's no ball of fluff on the needle and I'm sure its financially worthwhile protecting an expensive needle, let alone the improved SQ.
 
Have a KMAL mk111 double rcm Cleans once and LP,s stay clean,hence it does not get used much after I cleaned the records that are played the most.Fluid used is a home brew mixture,measured by eye,it works.
 
I strongly suspect that an ultrasonic clean followed by a vacuum is the best way to clean records, but that could be a bit obsessive. That doesn’t mean I might not try it - my vinyl care hasn’t always been what it is now.
 
Not sure I'm ready for a machine solution yet. Best liquid, best cloth, best brush (not necessarily all together)?

Has anyone used Groovewasher or Near mint?
 
I strongly suspect that an ultrasonic clean followed by a vacuum is the best way to clean records, but that could be a bit obsessive. That doesn’t mean I might not try it - my vinyl care hasn’t always been what it is now.
It's too soon for me to reach my final conclusion buts so far I agree with your suspicion. I've not heard such an SQ improvement before from cleaning. It's equivalent to a significant cartridge or other source upgrade.
 
I use a home-built Moth. It’s pretty much made every record I have, even those from charity shops and covered in mould, silent.

I make my own juice with distilled water and IPA. Cheap and works perfectly.

Stephen
 
I use an Okki Nokki RCM, l'art du son fluid, and a Mobile Fidelity brush.
Now that I know how effective they are, I wouldn't even bother with vinyl without having a RCM...
 
Been reading the thread Vinyl Pops and Clicks and saw a few contributions about cleaning records. Had a general search for advice but thought it might be worth putting the question out there (not for the first time I'm sure).

Best wishes, Peter
I use the older (noisy) Project VC-S with satisfactory effect
 
I started out with the Knosti approach which I pretty quickly decided was sub-optimal. Effectively only the first record in a batch gets properly cleaned. All the rest of the LPs bathe in the crud that came off their predecessors.

As I find the thought of me or my LPs bathing in used bathwater pretty unpleasant I swiftly moved onto a kit built Moth. There are two issues with the Moth (i) it is bloody noisy and (ii) after a while in a batch the velvet pads on the suction nozzle get very wet and leave marks on the allegedly clean LP. If you never clean in batches (ii) shouldn't be too much of an issue. I got 8 years of problem free cleaning from the Moth and sold it for £10 less than I paid for it. Great value for money.

I bought a Keith Monks Discovery One in the PFM Classifieds a couple of years ago. It is superior to the Moth in that (i) it is very quiet and (ii) it does not leave any smearing. The drawback is that it takes much longer to clean a single LP and batches are a bit of an ache because of this. I cannot claim that the Discovery One cleans any better than the Moth, it just seems superior in drying the LPs.

Any vacuum machine is superior to a Knosti or Spin-Clean spin-in-bath machine IMO and IME, particularly in terms of doing batches. Using decent replacement inners after cleaning is a must as otherwise you might as well not bother cleaning in the first place. I like the Nagaoka flimsy inners which I put into the original inner sleeve for ease of use.

I use the Keith Monks fluid as I am too indolent to make my own.
 
My mix is one third 99% pure isopropyl to two thirds purified or distilled water and a drop or two of Fairy liquid as a wetting agent. My favoured brush at present is a Tonar ‘Woodgoat’, but the handle isn’t holding up too well to the water so I’ll likely replace it with the ‘Wetgoat’.
I'm on my 3rd Tonar double row goats hair brush. The previous 2 shed several clumps of bristles and were returned
Even my 3rd one has shed one whole clump. I've since found a nylon brush which is much more reliable
 
....... after a while in a batch the velvet pads on the suction nozzle get very wet and leave marks on the allegedly clean LP. If you never clean in batches (ii) shouldn't be too much of an issue. ....

I would have to agree with this and my Project VCS is the same but I keep a clean cloth handy and dab it drier now and then. Having said all that even though the results are fantastic I still find it a bit of a chore so I rarely do more than a handful at any one time so not really an issue at all....
 
I’m using an Okki Nokki with L’Art du Son and The Right One record cleaning fluids…

Routine is.. apply liquid, spread evenly and let it soak in for a couple of minutes. A Clearaudio Pure Groove brush used with gentle pressure, spinning three to five revolutions clockwise, then anticlockwise. Vacuum. Repeat the process. Then a final rinse with distilled water and a different goats hair brush to clean off any cleaning liquid residue, then a final vacuum. Air dry for about thirty minutes before re-sleeving.

So far I’ve just used the two cleaning fluids, making up L’Art du Son in small batches of the recommended 2% ratio with distilled water and held in 500ml chemical dispenser bottles bought off ebay. Stored in a cupboard to avoid light damage after use - not had any clouding issues as yet.

These two liquids have done a decent job of cleaning some rather noisy records, but I do get the odd LP where surface noise is very prominent (in certain passages - other tracks fine) despite four to five cleaning passes, and have wondered about different cleaning liquids or whether to make a home brew with higher concentrates, or maybe ultrasonic cleaning is the only option for them?

I have an old drawing board I can level at chest height for weekend cleaning sessions...

EtLRikN.jpg
 
So proactive in finding an adequate RCM and so lazy to mix IPA, dist. water and w/up liquid (or photo. agent) for a hefty saving and better final evaporation ! Tch Tch!

Yep. Guilty as charged on the laziness front. I get very good results from KM’s fluid so am happy to continue using it. Not being at all arsed to consider a change my current process, let alone expend effort on making up new cleaning fluid to my own recipe, is shockingly indolent but entirely predictable.
 
I've had my Nitty Gritty 1.0 vacuum record cleaning machine since the mid-1980s. It does a splendid job of rescuing used record store finds, but is not the most convenient in use. If it would only die, I could justify replacing it with a more modern ProJect or Okki-Nokki.
 
Yep. Guilty as charged on the laziness front. I get very good results from KM’s fluid so am happy to continue using it. Not being at all arsed to consider a change my current process, let alone expend effort on making up new cleaning fluid to my own recipe, is shockingly indolent but entirely predictable.

Same here. For how many I clean and how often I use it I'll just buy the stuff thanks, stuff messing around making it.
 
So proactive in finding an adequate RCM and so lazy to mix IPA, dist. water and w/up liquid (or photo. agent) for a hefty saving and better final evaporation ! Tch Tch!

What?

All of 20 secs(approx) to mix some fluid. Blimey, some of you boys are very lazy.
 


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