Background information on the development of the Vinyl Cleaner
by Lourens Ouweltjes. Please visit Quality Service @ www.qsaudio.nl/

When playing LP’s we are frequently faced with dirt which cannot be removed with an ordinary LP brush. Quite often dirt is so tenacious that only a wet system will be effective in cleaning the record.

As a manufacturer of cleaning and lubricating products, and also being a music lover, I noticed that there are several LP cleaning systems in the market, with relatively expensive cleaners, which do not work well or are inadvisable due to being toxic. Many products contain isopropanol (IPA) which is harmful and, according to EEC regulations, should be indicated on the label. Sometimes even methanol is used.

For the development of an LP cleaner we started listing the requirements the cleaner should meet.

It should be:

• non toxic or harmful for human beings
• not harmful for vinyl
• able to loosen electrostatically adhered particles and remove static charges
• able to loosen many types of dirt (we noticed many different types of dirt as residues from previously used cleaning agents)
• able to easily remove fungi (due to storage in humid conditions)
• able to keep particles in solution
• able to remove fatty components (press fat from the production of the LP)
• volatile (not leaving soap sediments after cleaning)
• able to penetrate the grooves to the same extent as a needle

The last two requirements are very difficult to combine. If a record is moistened with a fluid, the entire surface appears wet, but microscopic examination would reveal that only a small upper part of the grooves is wettened.

Some formulas found on the internet or in audio magazines mention a photo additive to penetrate the grooves. This product works well on flat photo surfaces, but the requirement to deeply penetrate the grooves is only partly fulfilled.

In order to penetrate to the bottom of the LP groove a very low surface tension is needed. Even if the photo additive is used in a higher concentration, penetration is still too low. Raising the concentration of such an additive will also leave soapy material on the record which will dampen the contact between needle and groove, and thus have a sonic effect.

Fortunately, there are some (very expensive)effective industrial components available, but most non-professionals would find these too costly.

In the tests run with a manual washing machine and some vacuum machines, I experienced the neccesity of good hardware cooperating with good software. Testing was not easy because every record has its own unique history in the process of becoming dirty, making comparisons very difficult. Some ticks and pops appeared to be damage, not caused by dirt, but by the use of a cartridge run with a too low tracking force.

A study of the available components and the requirements outlined above leads to the following formulation:

• pure ethanol (not agressive to vinyl or human health) 40%
• double demineralised water
• a volatile component to remove the electrostatic charges
• a volatile component to lower the surface tension
• a synergistic mix of surface active components giving an extremely low surface tension and keeping particles in solution to prevent redeposition of dirt.

This resulted in a product which works effectively. This can be seen when a drop of liquid is applied to the surface of the LP, which shows the product spreading into the grooves.

The pure ethanol causes the product to be classified as flammable. Flashpoint: 28 C.

Quality Service Vinyl Cleaner is developed as a universal LP cleaner. It can be applied in a manual bath system and in more sophisticated vacuum LP washing machines.

For directions for the use of the cleaner in vacuum machines: please consult the manual supplied with the machine. If you use a manual bath system, it is advised to filter the vinyl cleaner after 10 or 15 records, the cleaner can be re-used after filtration. After washing about 100 LPs (or 250 singles) the cleaning fluid becomes saturated with fatty components.

Warning:The Vinyl Cleaner will harm CDs, and acetate or shellac 78 rpm records.

Do not mix with other cleaners.

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