CLEAN RECORDS WITH WHAT?????

The steamvac idea for tough jobs intrigues me, but one would need to be careful of heating/warping the record.

As far as formulations, mine is similar to SDC's but with half of the alcohol and one or two drops of dishwashing soap per pint. (Any more soap causes sudsing) It's cheap, so one can use a liberal amount. The VPI brush seems to work OK when used with the 16.5. I clean a second time with a few drops of Record Research Lab's cleaner.

Regards
Jim

Many years and thousands of records ago I found Torumat cleaning fluid really worked with my 16.5. The really dirty records may need a second cleaning. The Torumat cleans the record well and somehow nearly eliminates static electricity. While it's expensive when you figure what is costs per record it's nominal.

The people that pre clean are trying to keep the felt tube from getting contaminated with dirt. I've found that wiping the felt on the tube with a clean cloth moistened with Torumat does the job. I agree it's important to keep the felt clean.

Remember that the angle you set for the tube is critical and you should replace the tube once you see any worn felt. I've found that the suction slot should be very slightly tilted toward the front as opposed to vertical.

I wouldn't recommend getting records wet before you suck or sweep out all the dust or the vast amount of dust and than you should apply liquid.
If you will apply a liquid onto dirty vinyl the dust will get stuck onto groves.
So the first thing to do is to vacume it than use Discwasher record-conditioning brush with a small amount of discwasher liquid(or other professional brand) along the groves until the liquid dries out.
Place your record back onto VPI16 and vacume it from statically accumulated dust particles.

What's a good source for Torumat cleaning fluid?

Never use alcohol to clean records. Alcohol damages vinyl, over time it will become brittle and you may see visible streaking on the surface. As far as not putting a liquid on the vinyl before you vacuum, that's just ignorance, any good detergent / surfactant breaks down any bonding between the dirt and the vinyl. For 90+% of records, the proper surfactant and relatively pure water will do an excellent job. As a Chemist, I can tell you that we used this 30 years ago to clean absurdly expensive analytical equipment that had vinyl measuring tubes.