Record Cleaning: Developing the Best Possible Methods

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Update: This stuff is nasty and the bottle is DANGEROUS.

All professional cleaners need to be handled with care! Sorry to hear about your experience, but it helps people be aware of this. It's similar to splashing Simple Green or Lysol in your eyes. Even the IPA we all use is dangerous in this regard. Why some Hepastat packaging has a dispenser to deal with I do not know.
 
All professional cleaners need to be handled with care! Sorry to hear about your experience, but it helps people be aware of this. It's similar to splashing Simple Green or Lysol in your eyes. Even the IPA we all use is dangerous in this regard. Why some Hepastat packaging has a dispenser to deal with I do not know.
Yes, embarrassing to me, but I thought it was worth sharing. Diluted hepastat is apparently not a big deal (even at the 256 concentration), but at full strength it'll get'cha. That said, regular old bleach would have been even worse. I'll reiterate the packaging conundrum. If it ONLY works with a certain type of system, it should say so (and have instructions) on the label. A real lapse on the part of Staples/Coast Labs.
 
FYI - the cleaning solution (Hepastat, Terg 3&9, iso alcohol, and distilled h2o) will be used in a 40kHz ultrasonic machine.

FWIW the Tergitol S-3 is oil based and will not do any cleaning in a water based mixture.I have confirmed this with both DOW and personal experience. It will break down into tiny droplets in the US and be a bitch to remove from LP. I have done this and been very sorry. I know others say it disolves in water they mix the two together but that is not possible according to DOW. I use the S-9 only in distilled H2O in my US and get fantastic results. I add a tiny drop of Dawn for greasy fingerprint removal.

Not trying to re open a huge can of worms just saying that the maker of that chemical (DOW) says it will not work in water based cleaning and I have had a nightmare trying to remove the oily substance after a US bath with it.
 
Call these guys or order on line. I just called and asked, they do ship to CA.
http://www.talasonline.com

This where I bought my Terg form and will buy my Triton from when I use up my Terg next year.
Thanks very much for taking the time to respond and calling them !!! :)

Being a chemical it might be a bit of a hassle getting it through customs but I will go this route if I cannot find a Canadian distributor.
 
Unfortunately, not everyone on this forum lives in the US of A. I'll find a distributor in Canada eventually.

Did you find a Canadian distributer ? I'm in Vancouver and a few of us AKérs here would like to share a bottle.
 
Being a chemical it might be a bit of a hassle getting it through customs but I will go this route if I cannot find a Canadian distributor.
I ordered mine from them (Talas Online) roughly 10 years ago. No problem then...delivered by mail. There might still be a chance.

FWIW the Tergitol S-3 is oil based and will not do any cleaning in a water based mixture.I have confirmed this with both DOW and personal experience. It will break down into tiny droplets in the US and be a bitch to remove from LP. I have done this and been very sorry. I know others say it disolves in water they mix the two together but that is not possible according to DOW. I use the S-9 only in distilled H2O in my US and get fantastic results. I add a tiny drop of Dawn for greasy fingerprint removal.
The mixture is recommended by Collections Canada...I've been using it for nearly a decade without issue. In fact, for a brief period I was mixing S3 in baby oil and applying it directly to the vinyl before submerging the record in a U/S bath with water and S9. Best cleaning I've ever seen/heard, though the areas around the label protectors needed special attention. For this, I had to scrub and flush it with water/S9 to remove the last traces of the oil/S3.

I'm not sure why you're having trouble. Only reason I stopped doing it is guilt for the massive chemical dump my laundry sink drain became, though I still use this treatment to clean my Nag roller as nothing else comes close.
 
I was mixing S3 in baby oil

Yes that will work as the S-3 is OIL soluble. I do not doubt recommendations exist for using the S-3 in water. W/O beating a dead horse it sounds like what you had around the label is what I had in the grooves. My guess is the oily nature of the residue left behind would quickly become a dust gathering stylus killer actually getting the stylus oily as well. I plan to switch to Triton when my S-9 is gone and will see how that works. I have tried many home brews and even some pricey pro concoctions. I like my 1:1000 S-9 in US with a 1:600 scrub/rinse after and a final 100% D-H2O rinse. I do use the Discdoc brush and his expensive cleaning solution (with amazing results) for hand washing important (rare) LPs or really dirty ones prior to or after a US bath.
 
I do not doubt recommendations exist for using the S-3 in water. W/O beating a dead horse it sounds like what you had around the label is what I had in the grooves. My guess is the oily nature of the residue left behind would quickly become a dust gathering stylus killer actually getting the stylus oily as well.
The recommended mixture is at a 0.05% concentration of each, S3 and S9. I use a higher concentration of the mixture on my prescription eyeglasses. If it left any kind of a residue after the rinse, I'd know about it.
 
YMMV I suppose but I most assuredly had droplets of an oily substance when using S3 mixed in. Perhaps a better rinse would solve this but it seems one would just be rinsing off a substance that was never put to work since it is only soluble in oil and no oil was used in my cleaning process. As previously stated I have no doubt people can find recommendations (not from DOW however) to use S 3 in water. Perhaps the US action is what caused droplets to form? One thing I have no doubt about, because I saw it with my eyes, the S 3 did not dilute or dissolve in water, it remained whole.

I used to use 1:400 dilution when hand washing and sometimes still will but that seemed too strong for the US which can and does run on water only in many instances. Besides using 25ML of S9 each time I fill the US would see me burn through an awful lot of the stuff versus 10ML and a touch of dawn.

To change subject I plan to try (on some beaters first) this stuff my dentist recommended that he uses for his US. Safe on plastic instruments.
http://www.sultanhc.com/sw/swchanne...t/productcatalog.asp?SWAPPID=87&PCPage=689378
 
As previously stated I have no doubt people can find recommendations (not from DOW however) to use S 3 in water.
To be clear, I'm not talking about dissolving S3 in water, but rather, mixing S3 and S9 together and dissolving the mixture in water. S3 is soluble in S9, the S9 in turn is soluble in water. The combined mixture does not separate or leave an oily film when they're properly mixed together.
 
To be clear, I'm not talking about dissolving S3 in water, but rather, mixing S3 and S9 together and dissolving the mixture in water. S3 is soluble in S9, the S9 in turn is soluble in water. The combined mixture does not separate or leave an oily film when they're properly mixed together.
Many of us are adding isopropyl alcohol to our mixes. Because many nonpolar compounds and oils are included in isopropyl alcohol's range, it is quite possible that that the dissolving of S3 is enhanced by the presence of the isopropyl in the mix.

Enjoy,
Rich P
 
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