gary wrote:
I have a record cleaning machine for my vinyl collection, but I need
to get some more cleaner to use with it. When I bought the machine,
it came with one small bottle of cleaner. I also bought a bottle of
concentrate that I added to a gallon of distilled water. After
sitting around for years, that mixture got kinda funky so I threw it
away. It's time to get something new.
I shopped around for commercial cleaners, but all the ones I found
are priced out of this world.
I did some research on the subject online. I think this is the
solution I want to make:
75 ml distilled water
25 ml Isopropyl alcohol (make sure there are no additives, like Lanolin)
.5 ml wetting agent (Kodak Photo flow, Triton X-114 or X-100)
... but instead of Triton X-114 or X-100 which are suppose to be
nasty things that can cause health problems, I hope to use Triton(tm)
XL-80N surfactant from Dow Chemical which is suppose to be safe.
I went to Dow's web page and requested a sample a couple weeks ago.
The only thing I received from them was a specification in the form
of a .pdf document.
Any thoughts/comments on the subject? Does anyone know I can buy a
small quantity of Triton(tm) XL-80N surfactant.
thanks
Gary
Gary,
Please don't use isopropyl alcohol in any cleaner for cleaning. The
solution I use is "The Disc Doctor's Miracle Record Cleaner" which is
used by a number of archival organizations and is recommended by audio
various publications, too. The one thing he mentions in his
literature is the following, "_The requirements for a cleaner that
will safely clean any type of disc are strict._ It must: (and this is
the fourth paragraph) Not contain isopropyl alchohol, which can
dissolve shellac surfaces [not your case], and cause leaching of
plasticizers from synthetic plastic pressings making them brittle and
subject to excess wear."
Aside from other considerations, that makes isopropyl alchohol not a
good cleaning agent for recordings. Also, the Disc Doctor is a
chemist and has been selling his product for a number of years, and we
at Family Theater have cleaned over 300 acetate discs with it with
excellent results. It is relatively inexpensive and comes with a set
of brushes for preparation and removal of the contaminants. I've also
used it on my vinyl collection, too, with the same good results. I
know that it is also used in disc vacuum cleaning machines by other
archivists.
I'd be interested in any other comments by users of this product,
although there are a number of other products that people swear by.
Rod Stephens
Archivist, Family Theater Productions