DIY Record Cleaning Solution

Hello Dan_Ed/All,
Of course topics such as this have been beaten to death across the internet over the years, and it's an age old battle. I reckon nothing will ever change in regards to this, and the different "camps" as to who's wrong, and who's right.

The issue at hand, is what is actually good enough?
If a person wishes to use Dawn, Windex, 409, Spray+Wash, and the many other off the shelf products, and feel that they accomplish the needed tasks, well then, I reckon that's fine if they're happy.

The questions that arise in my mind, and I'm sure other's minds as well, is the consideration of a product being either too agressive for it's task, or not agressive enough. The correct answer, just like the "Three Bears", is you want a product-products that do the job "juuust right".

One might think "well, if I only use just purified-6 time Distilled Water to clean my records, how can I get into trouble, and I cannot harm my valued records", but the truth is, by not removing dirt, grime, biological contaminants (Molds-Fungus-etc) and then running a Stylus through this mess, one does indeed harm thier Vinyl, as well as placing additional wear on Stylus too. Lastly, and just important, you will not fully achieve extracting every nuance, and sould quality the vinyl is capable of producing.

The choice of course as said earlier, must be each, and every vinyl fan's choice to use what they please.

I would only suggest again for the original poster, as others have suggested, you have gone to the length, and expense of acquiring a great RCM machine, now go the rest of the way, and acquire top quality cleaning brushes, and the highest quality Cleaning Products. You will then see the synergistic match of how they go so well together, and your vinyl will look, and sound the best that they can. You will not regret using high quality trusted cleaners Mark

Spot on, Mark!

Well said, Mark. First, do no harm. Second, get everything off. Third, be proud you did it your way.

Charlie: this post is one of the best on this forum. Lots of ideas that help many people. Thanks for keeping it going

Markd51, or anyone else on the thread - Does anyone know what VPI is using in its fluid now?

I just bought my second VPI 16.5...My first VPI, the original 1983 design, finally gave up the ghost. I didn't use it from about '90 - '07, then started using it again after re-habbing my vinyl rig. In the early days, I used the VPI fluid, and marked all my cleaned records for the month and year of cleaning. I cleaned only with the VPI fluid back then. Twenty-odd years later, those records still sound great (and mostly I don't intend to clean them again, unless really necessary).

Now, I've been cleaning with MoFi fluids, which seem great, but a bit of a pain, b/c I have to leave them on for awhile, and do a light scrub, usually, to get best results on the dirtier records. And, on one old Toscanini RCA on which I used the Super Deep Cleaner multiple times, I'd swear the sound has become more bright (in a negative way) after about the 3rd run at it. (Darn clean by now, though.) But, can't say for sure.

I think the 80's VPI fluid had a bit of alcohol in it. I'm not convinced that the small amount used hurt the records. I assumed the new VPI fluid would be the same--but based on Mark's comments, I don't know. Does anybody know? I'm curious, frankly, to try it (since I got a bottle with the machine), but not if it's going to cause some gunky build-up.

To the point, directly, of the original question: I know several serious vinyl collectors and users that make their own fluid, which is mainly some combination of isopropyl alcohol and distilled water, probably very much as described in other posts, above. I'm not recommending it, and don't intend to do it myself, but there are some old hands at this game that scoff at the notion that a little bit of alcohol, used once, is going to seriously damage the vinyl. And they've got the empirical evidence of 20 - 25 years of use to support their views. Granted, anecdotal evidence doesn't win in the courtroom. But it's not valueless. It's certainly enough to make me curious to try some VPI fluid, if it's got alcohol in it (instead of some mystery gunk) on my stack of "really hard to clean" records, particularly given that my own anecdotal evidence seems to support these collectors' views.

Otherwise, I'll stick with the MoFi, for the exceptionally well-stated reasons Mark mentioned in his last post: The experts put it together so that it's "just right". (Yes, maybe I had an over-use incident on my Toscanini record, and that supports the notion that, whatever we use, restraint is necessary, except where you have a record that's a real problem, as this one was.) One relatively quick application of the MoFi regular Super Wash does a really nice job for most purposes, without negative side effects, so far as I can tell.