Looking for suggestions from anyone who has experience with cleaning very old, very dirty records. These 45s were stored in boxes with no sleeves for 50 years. They actually play pretty well, considering that. A surprisingly high percentage of them are keepers. But they are filthy. #vinyl#records
@lydialurch Also, this advice may be too late - but don't play a dirty record if you can avoid it. It's much harder to remove dirt once it's been impacted into the groove by the stylus.
@thomas This is all really interesting and thoughtful advice. I appreciate this input and the experience that went into those solutions. I'll definitely give your methods a try. I'm working with 450 records and I'm only playing the ones I don't know to decide which ones are keepers. So far it's been around 50/50 so I have my work cut out for me. 😄
@lydialurch For particularly dirty records, wood glue works great. PVA doesn't stick to vinyl, but it does to dirt - so you can cover the playing surface in a layer of glue, wait for it to dry, and then peel it off. You have to inspect the surface closely before playing, and use a wooden toothpick to remove any stray bits of glue, and I usually give it a quick clean with the solvent and water once too. Titebond II is the recommended brand - not sure why, but it's always worked wonders for me.
@lydialurch I use a record-cleaning solvent and a microfibre cloth, then rinse with de-ionised water and another cloth, and then play it while the record is still damp. The solvent lifts the dirt, and the stylus drags it out. I have a spare stylus that I use for cleaning, that I don't care so much about if it gets gunked up, and I use a stylus cleaner on it between sides. Labels are usually harder wearing than you'd think - you shouldn't submerge them, but a bit of splash is rarely a problem.
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