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RE: My DIY approach to ultrasonic record cleaning

Posted by Rushton (R) on October 22, 2016 at 12:02:57

In Reply to: RE: My DIY approach to ultrasonic record cleaning posted by Lew on October 22, 2016 at 11:07:36:

Hi Lew, the person you met at CAF is David Ratcliff, his company is Ultrasonic Records and he calls his product "Ultrasonic V-8" because he does fit 8 records on a spindle in the same 10L tank I'm using for four records.

If you're using a VPI HW-17 and a four step enzyme cleaning process, like Walker Audio Prelude, you will get better results in my opinion. This four step wet/vac cleaning process has been my gold standard for over 15 years. My experience with it is why I've always found the various ultrasonic demonstrations to be underwhelming because none of them came near to the results I got with this manual wet/vac cleaning and cleaning solutions.

In my essay, I try to make the point that outstanding ultrasonic record cleaning IS possible and that it CAN rival the best manual cleaning if we go to the same trouble to use a high purity rinse, vacuum dry (not air dry), good detergents in the cleaning solution, and very high purity water in both the tank solution and in the rinse.

Too many people assume the magic is in the ultrasonic. It's not. The magic is in the cleaning solution just as in manual cleaning. The ultrasonic cavitation is only your cleaning brush to help dislodge the contaminants that your cleaning solution is actually working on.

And, yes, Harry Weisfeld did purchase an Ultrasonic V-8 setup - one of three different ultrasonic setups he bought to try out. Harry currently uses a different ultrasonic tank with the Vinyl Stack Spin Kit [see his post] and with rinsing on one of his VPI RCMs (the Cyclone). He discusses his experiments and his journey in his Record Cleaning thread at the VPI Forums.

Good question about the ethanol! I use it in the final rinse with Type 1 Reagent grade water (3% ethanol by volume) precisely because it evaporates very quickly. It serves as a surfactant to get the final rinse into the grooves, as a binder to collect to itself any final contaminants, and as a drying agent.

Thanks for taking time to pose some good questions.

Edits: 10/22/16

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