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Last month I purchased a record cleaning gadget from a well known auction website.
The gadget is called the 'UFO' (for reasons which will become apparent later). They are home-made by a ebay seller in New Jersey, USA.
The UFO consists of two plastic cups which fit over the record label either side of the record. A threaded rod connects the two cups and is inserted through the spindle hole in the record. A wing nut enables you to clamp the two halves together tightly and large rubber washers create a watertight seal around the record.
Basically what this does is it keeps the record label dry allowing you to wash the record with no fear of damaging the label.
To say that the UFO is a bit 'Heath Robinson' would be being kind, it was obviously made in a shed and it shows.
Once installed in the UFO you can simply put the whole thing in your kitchen sink to wash the record.
Initially I tried lukewarm water with a squirt of washing up liquid. This worked reasonably but it was very hard to rinse absolutely all traces of washing up liquid off the record surface and so I was often left with a bit of residue once the record had dried. I have soft water at home but if your tap water is hard you'd probably find this method very poor.
After a bit of experimentation I found that the best cleaning solution was a mix of distilled water and isopropyl alcohol, quite a dilute mixture with something like 10 parts water to 1 part I.P.A. (that's IsoPropyl Alcohol not India Pale Ale).
I found an excellent cleaning 'brush' was this window demister pad which I purchased from my local supermarket for £1. It has a very soft microfibre surface on one side which is the side I use.
It might be a bit crude but you can achieve superb results with the UFO. I know it's a terrible cliche but I really have been hearing extra details on my favourite vinyl records which I have never noticed before. The background noise on most of my records is considerably lower after cleaning and the stylus stays cleaner for longer. I'm pretty confident that I can achieve results every bit as good as an expensive record cleaning machine with it.
A quick word of warning: When my package arrived from the U.S. my local post office charged me an extra £13 in tax before handing over the parcel. You might be able to get around this if you can persuade the seller mark it as a 'gift item' on the goods declaration.
NB: The UFO worked perfectly out of the box but as an added 'belt and braces' precaution against leaks I sealed the metal washer with a smear of Hylomar Blue gasket cement and replaced the nylon washer with a rubber tap washer.
The gadget is called the 'UFO' (for reasons which will become apparent later). They are home-made by a ebay seller in New Jersey, USA.
The UFO consists of two plastic cups which fit over the record label either side of the record. A threaded rod connects the two cups and is inserted through the spindle hole in the record. A wing nut enables you to clamp the two halves together tightly and large rubber washers create a watertight seal around the record.
Basically what this does is it keeps the record label dry allowing you to wash the record with no fear of damaging the label.
To say that the UFO is a bit 'Heath Robinson' would be being kind, it was obviously made in a shed and it shows.
Once installed in the UFO you can simply put the whole thing in your kitchen sink to wash the record.
Initially I tried lukewarm water with a squirt of washing up liquid. This worked reasonably but it was very hard to rinse absolutely all traces of washing up liquid off the record surface and so I was often left with a bit of residue once the record had dried. I have soft water at home but if your tap water is hard you'd probably find this method very poor.
After a bit of experimentation I found that the best cleaning solution was a mix of distilled water and isopropyl alcohol, quite a dilute mixture with something like 10 parts water to 1 part I.P.A. (that's IsoPropyl Alcohol not India Pale Ale).
I found an excellent cleaning 'brush' was this window demister pad which I purchased from my local supermarket for £1. It has a very soft microfibre surface on one side which is the side I use.
It might be a bit crude but you can achieve superb results with the UFO. I know it's a terrible cliche but I really have been hearing extra details on my favourite vinyl records which I have never noticed before. The background noise on most of my records is considerably lower after cleaning and the stylus stays cleaner for longer. I'm pretty confident that I can achieve results every bit as good as an expensive record cleaning machine with it.
A quick word of warning: When my package arrived from the U.S. my local post office charged me an extra £13 in tax before handing over the parcel. You might be able to get around this if you can persuade the seller mark it as a 'gift item' on the goods declaration.
NB: The UFO worked perfectly out of the box but as an added 'belt and braces' precaution against leaks I sealed the metal washer with a smear of Hylomar Blue gasket cement and replaced the nylon washer with a rubber tap washer.
