Re: Record cleaning solution question

Posted by lukiedog (A) on December 14, 2005 at 12:59:38

In Reply to: Record cleaning solution question posted by Winefood on December 14, 2005 at 09:56:44:

I approached one of our R&D folks here about this. This guy is pretty sharp (in fact his previous job at Gillette was to "make the blade sharper," as he put it). He is not a chemist. He is currently working on cleaning our metal products, somewhat related. According to him, Isopropyl Alcohol leaves a residue. It does. This is not debatable. And he is using "lab grade." Put a drop onto a mirror, let it dry and you will see a whitish residue. I suggested to him that maybe I should just leave it out of my cleaning fluid. He recommended leaving it in. The Iso molecule is "polar", one end attaches to water, the other to oil, this property is desirable for what we are doing. He suggested 10% or so. He also suggested using the lab grade or tape head cleaner from Radio Shack instead of the pharmacy type, but didn't seem to have any great concern about it, since it is vacuumed up anyway. For the bulk of the fluid, distilled water. He was wary of having to use "de-ionized", he didn't feel this helped. Water is run through a column of pellets to get "de-ionized" (he showed me, he has one). Distilling is what really cleans up the water. A surfactant is needed and he suggested Triton XL-100. A few drops, not much is needed. I indicated some people were using dishwasher liquid, he did not like the idea, "too harsh" he said (with a heavy Chinese accent). I got the impression he generally liked this mixture, which is well known and used by many vinyl cleaners, apparently.

One thing to add was a suggestion to look into the use of automobile windshield washer fluid as a medium. He said he had done some research with this cleaning our product and found it to leave virtually no residue. These are methanol based. Of course, this may utterly destroy vinyl, he is speaking specifically about cleaning our metal products and the fact that it showed to leave low residue. I pressed him for a brand to no avail. I did spray some clear Armor-All I had laying around onto one of my more stubborn albums, not sure it did much better than my mixture, but this particular fluid was not what he was talking about ("the blue stuff"). Something to fool around with when you get one of those lost causes or a Barry Manilow album...

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - Record cleaning solution question - Winefood 09:56:44 12/14/05 (12)

You're gonna have the Audio Police (Record Cleaning Divion) on your tail - Dave Pogue 13:13:19 12/14/05 (0)

Re: Record cleaning solution question - lukiedog 12:59:38 12/14/05 (1)

"Something to fool around with when you get... a Barry Manilow album." - axolotl 13:24:29 12/14/05 (0)

Re: Record cleaning solution question - mtosh72 10:07:38 12/14/05 (8)

Re: Record cleaning solution question - Winefood 11:00:02 12/14/05 (6)

Re: Record cleaning solution question - mtosh72 11:07:20 12/14/05 (5)

Re: Record cleaning solution - anybody tried straight denatured alcohol? - Winefood 12:09:50 12/14/05 (4)

Why not C-4 or Semtex ? - Fred J 17:07:20 12/14/05 (0)

Re: Record cleaning solution - anybody tried straight denatured alcohol? - Fred J 16:47:23 12/14/05 (2)

Fred, see my followup to your post about Photo "Flow" residuum - hiatt@alaska.net 17:54:32 12/14/05 (1)

Re: Fred, see my followup to your post about Photo "Flow" residuum - Fred J 21:17:34 12/14/05 (0)

KAB EV1 alert.... - blake 10:17:08 12/14/05 (0)

Follow Ups

Re: Record cleaning solution question - lukiedog 12:59:38 12/14/05 (1)

"Something to fool around with when you get... a Barry Manilow album." - axolotl 13:24:29 12/14/05 (0)

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