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Re: [ARSCLIST] Record cleaning fluid recommendations?
Hi Everyone,
You might want to ask Duane Goldman what he can say about research on
record cleaning; he's a chemist and certainly did research in the course of
developing the system and materials which he sells. The difficulty that
arises because of this suggestion is of course that he'll be asked to
divulge his trade secrets and may tend to sound as though he's promoting
his own products, because after all he is in the business of selling them.
At Yale HSR staff have used several types of cleaning systems over the past
three dozen years or so, including Liquid Ivory + water with complexion
brush, ethelyne glycol + Photo-Flo + water, Lane Audio's formula (found to
be especially effective at removing whitish degradation products from
lacquer-coated transcription discs without visible or audible short-term
damage -- but even some damage might be acceptable on this medium, whose
products are all doomed to pretty quick decay anyway), and The Disc
Doctor's methods and materials, which are currently in use. I've also seen
various machines in action, such as the Keith Monks and others. In order to
minimize the effects of foreign substances on vinyl and the dangers to
components of discs from detergents and chemicals such as ethelyne glycol,
staff have shifted to less threatening methods of cleaning but have always
stayed with working by hand, i.e., without machines, because of limits of
space and because of economy (experienced cleaners can clean discs manually
at least as quickly as machines). Many of the machines are fine if that's
what you want, but they're not absolutely necessary; and most of them can
be used with various types of fluids. The only cases of damage seen here
have been caused by alcohols when they were even minor components of fluids
tested, but no scientifically valid testing has been done here on items
treated with such chemicals as ethelyne glycol & others, which chemists
advised avoiding.
As an employee of a non-commercial educational institution, I'm not allowed
to endorse any particular commercial product or service, but I may answer
questions about what is done at Yale HSR, as done above. And I can
emphasize that what's been done at Yale HSR has been guided by
recommendations from chemists and other experts with scientific
backgrounds, though much of what has been said has to be called anecdotal
(perhaps one could say "scientifically informed anecdotal").
Like many others, I would very much like to see the results of systematic
research on record cleaning methods (as Steve Smolian says, LC may have
conducted such research -- has anyone asked what LC staff currently do to
clean discs ? - please notice the wording of the question, which does not
ask for any value judgments). The problems seem to be the time and funding
needed for such research and testing: archives in general, I suspect, need
to clean records "now" rather than after years of testing and tend to lack
the money to fund research.
Richard (Warren Jr., Curator, Historical Sound Recordings, Yale Music Library)
At 01:31 PM 12/15/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Has anybody actually done any systematic research about the relative
effectiveness of various commercial and home-brew record cleaning mixtures?
It seems as if all of the suggestions posted to this thread have been
anecdotal reports based on relatively limited experience.
I understand that many on this list have extensive experience cleaning and
preserving sounds from LPs and other media. I don't intend to belittle this
expertise. But it's entirely possible that more than one mixture will
produce equally effective results, within the requirement that they do not
do any damage to the media. Seems like most people will stop experimenting
after they find a product that appears to meet their needs.
And it's also possible that some common methods are in fact potentially
destructive. Or that the difference between different mixtures might be
below the noise threshold of many playback chains.
I would like to see a study that compares the subjective and/or measured
reduction in surface noise after treatment with different mixtures, and
using different techniques. Of course, it's true that every LP has a
different amount and type of crud in its grooves before cleaning, so the
starting point will be somewhat different on each one, but using a
reasonable sampling of records from collections and thrift stores ought to
produce some kind of useful averages.
Does anything like this exist in print or online? If not, would it be
productive to organize some formal standards for testing?
John Ross
Northwest Folklife
Seattle
At 11:09 AM 12-15-2003 -0600, you wrote:
With all due respect, you're recommending products based upon price rather
than the quality of the cleaning. I'm confident that a superior & safer
level of cleaning is available at a reasonable price & its unfortunate that
you have not had an opportunity to hear the results of using these materials.