Craig's Record Cleaning Concoction

[Craig Maier]

I believe that the two Glycols used in "C3" (found in the anti freeze) would serve similar functions as Photo-Flo would. I believe that they are all in the same basic family of chemical compounds, but I am not sure.

[Chris Riley]

I've purchased the ingredients for Craig's concoction, and I think I have the right stuff, but would like to get opinion on a couple of items, and whether it truly is the right stuff, before I mix it all up.

Automatic Dishwasher Cleaning Liquid: I purchased Jet-Dry (Turbo Dry). Nothing in the way of an ingredient list on the bottle, but it doesn't say that there is bleach. It does say it contains a non-ionic surfactant. All other products were of some colour - this one, clear. (If I had purchased a blue coloured liquid, I would have called it "Blue Craig" )

Antibacterial Liquid Hand Soap: I purchased Azuro. This is a Canadian product, but had the least perfumes and other gimmick additives. It contains 62% ethyl alcohol, water, carbomer, glycerin, "fragrance" (?), triethanolamine, aloe vera and tocopheril acetate.

The other thing is, Canada is metric, so finding exactly a gallon of distilled water is impossible. I got a 4 liter jug of it, slightly more than a gallon (1 gallon = 3.78541178 liters), and I will have to carefully transfer a gallon to another container.

Thanx.

Chris

[Chris Riley]

I called the Jet-Dry people and got the ingredients:

Water
Surfactant
Magnesium chloride
Propylene glycol
Citric acids
Organic salt
Preservative

Any problem with these ingredients?

Thanx,
Chris

[Craig Maier]

Keeping in mind that I am not a chemist, those chemicals look ok for the application - - - importantly, there is no chlorine which could damage vinyl (PVC) records.

[Chris Riley]

Thanx, Craig. I felt a little like a mad chemist as I put all of the products on my kitchen counter.

[Craig Maier]

Yeah - - - it looks and feels a little strange when you are mixing anti-freeze and other stuff like that in your kitchen. If someone walked in on you, what would you say to them? Maybe ask, "wanna little dinner? I'll cook!"

[Brian]

If someone walked in on you, what would you say to them?

Just hope some nosy neighbor with binoculars doesn't report you to Homeland Secutity!

[Carlp]

Thanks for this recipe, Craig.

I just mixed up a batch and found it quite sudsy. Not something to use without a thorough rinse. On a hunch, I used a little less of the Cascade and anti-bacterial soap but it's still quite sudsy, and I don't imagine the 1/2 cup of distilled water added back (as suggested a few posts ago) would make any difference. I also used a little more alcohol than called for in the recipe.

Is this others' experience as well? I rinsed with distilled water after but still there's a residue when dry. I could have rinsed it more carefully, but it would have taken a lot of rinsing to remove all residue.

In short, I don't think this is a substitute for any Discwasher-type system, but instead is probably a good deep cleaner for really dirty records. After that, maybe all that's needed is an anti-static brushing or cleaning with mostly distilled water. Still, I wonder why the sudsing is so great since the recipe is based on the D3 cleaner (which didn't suds at all IIRC).

Finally, anti-bacterial is not anti-fungal and I'm sure fungus is a much bigger problem for records than bacteria. But...I read somewhere that the vinyl used in records tends to deter fungus growth anyway, so is antifungal really needed? (Despite having read that, I'm sure some of my records have some fungus on them from when an old girlfriend over-watered plants on top of them when I was living in NC.

Carl

[Geebster]

Thanks for this recipe, Craig.

I just mixed up a batch and found it quite sudsy. Not something to use without a thorough rinse. On a hunch, I used a little less of the Cascade and anti-bacterial soap but it's still quite sudsy, and I don't imagine the 1/2 cup of distilled water added back (as suggested a few posts ago) would make any difference. I also used a little more alcohol than called for in the recipe.

Is this others' experience as well? I rinsed with distilled water after but still there's a residue when dry. I could have rinsed it more carefully, but it would have taken a lot of rinsing to remove all residue.

Carl

I don't doubt your findings, but I can only recount what I have experienced. I have made several batches of Craigs solution, and never to have found suds or residue to be an issue at all.

I don't know what else to tell you than that. I have found it to clean well, without much of a residue.

GB

[Craig Maier]

I am not sure why there were suds - - - I have not experienced that problem nor have I noticed any obvious residue on the records afterwards.

[Carlp]

Thanks, all. Well, maybe I'll try it again and see. Again, it certainly cleans well despite the suds and residue.

Carl

[Craig Maier]

Quoting Carip:

"I also used a little more alcohol than called for in the recipe."

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Could that have caused the solution to have become more sudsy? Anyway, it would seem that something is different with yours, just do not know what it is.

[Carlp]

I'll try it again soon, this time with the proper amount of alcohol. Meanwhile, as a thought, is there any danger in using hydrogen peroxide on vinyl? I've seen it recommended for cleaning PVC fabric and vinyl car tops, and it seems like it might do a good job on fungus/mildew. Not sure how it would react with the other ingredients, but I was thinking about it as a substitute for the antibacterial soap (to reduce my sudsing problem).

Carl

[Craig Maier]

While Hydrogen Peroxide may kill fungus and mildew, it is also a very reactive oxidizer. I do not know what implications that oxidation action could have on the various ingredients which make up a vinyl record. Maybe give it a try on a record that you do not care about and see what happens.

[Dan McDonald]

My dad just gave me a Standard Phonograph. It's got a spindle about 1/2" diameter. Approximately 1910 or so.
I just purchased some records for it via ebay. Any thoughts on if the concoction will work for these records?

Dan