Wood Glue as Vinyl Cleaner

Tried this method for the first time on a four decades plus copy of The Rolling Stones' "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out"... When I first played the LP, it was riddled with loads of crackles and pops. I would rate it a G to Fair condition. The LP has had so much mileage to begin with so I was not expecting a miracle. After the treatment, it is now a strong VG-. There still are some crackles but from it was previously but has been reduced dramatically. Much more listenable. Down the road, just for posterity, I'll give it another run through with the glue.

Next up is CSN&Y's "Deja Vu"...

It was an easy application though it requires some touch. I picked up a junker table at a Goodwill, then a 16 ounce bottle of TiteBond II then off I go. It is time intensive work but the results could be worth it if my first attempt is an indication. I plan on employing it on the noisiest titles in my library.

Hello, and welcome to AK!

My method uses two 16 oz bottles, #1 is full strength. This is for the inner and outer runs, the run in and the run out. Then I do a thin zig zag between the two, just for strength. Then #2 bottle is diluted 3 parts glue to 1 part distilled water. Very watery, and dries quickly. I fill the gap between the run in and run out, smoothing with a playing card or old credit card. Thin is good, it dries fast, but get ample covering, because too thin, and it just crumbles, which sucks.

I can now glue a side in under 1 minute. Leave for work, flip, and do the other side. All done!
 
^Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I might try your method. When it crumbles, I assume it leaves some bits behind? Not stuck but can be wiped off?

The Stones one went well peel-wise. There was no static but I did do it under a anti static MoFi sleeve so maybe it had something to do with it.

Just did the CSN&Y LP. Side 1 last night and Side 2 this morning before going to work. I then place the LP on top of a peanut butter cap in the garage where it gets warm so it dries quickly so by the time I get home it's ready for peeling. I likely will only do one at a time unlike some who do multiples...

Even after a uniform coating, it seems spinning it on the table helps spread the glue evenly. Will report on the results on my initial ones soon.
 
As of now, I have a few that I will give this treatment:

"A Night At The Opera" - Queen [U.K. pressing]
"Dark Side Of The Moon" - Pink Floyd [U.K. pressing]
"Get Your Wings" - Aerosmith
"Stranger In Town" - Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band

They all look good on the surface but playing them is another matter entirely. The Floyd album I bought sealed and surprisingly was noisy. That was unexpected. I have a Spin-Clean that I use on all my LPs both new and used. Afterwards, they are stored in MoFi anti-static inner sleeves.

After the above, I will cue up all my Led-Zeppelin LPs... They all play fine but all are over three decades old and just want to give them that deep cleaning.
 
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When I spread it too thin, it breaks and tears. I use packing tape folded over to grip and lift it off. Just a hassle, no biggie, and if all else fails, reglue.

It is addictive, because in my estimation, it is the end of the road. Even ultrasonic guys say there's not much improvement with glue vs. ultrasonic, tho ultrasonic is far easier.

I've glued probably 200 records at this point. Buy my glue in gallon jugs, dilute and use.
 
When I spread it too thin, it breaks and tears. I use packing tape folded over to grip and lift it off. Just a hassle, no biggie, and if all else fails, reglue.

It is addictive, because in my estimation, it is the end of the road. Even ultrasonic guys say there's not much improvement with glue vs. ultrasonic, tho ultrasonic is far easier.

I've glued probably 200 records at this point. Buy my glue in gallon jugs, dilute and use.
It looks like it will be that way for me too as I think this method will produce good results. It takes 3 to 5 minutes to coat the LP...then 8 to 12 hours to dry...then just a few to peel off. The wait time really isn't an issue unless someone has absolutely nothing to do. :) Looking forward to how the CSN&Y will look. Love that jacket.

I have done two titles and have used up a quarter of the bottle. Appears that I will go the jug route. My hardware store has them in buckets but no jugs so that could make refilling a chore. I just showed the peel to a couple of people who were tripped out how it looked and the deep seated stuff it pulled.

On my technique, I had the junker spin the LP while I made concentric circles, stopped it, then found it easier to spread the coat evenly just by manually rotating the platter and using a disabled credit card. My first try in spreading the glue was done with the table spinning...made it harder than it should have been.

BTW...this looks like a very nice forum to do research and listen to other music enthusiasts.
 
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It's a fantastic forum, hope you stay around.

One last thing - get an old fashioned Discwasher brush, a cheapie squirt bottle, mix some 91% isopropyl alcohol, cut it 50/50 with distilled water (my mix, others recommend less alcohol, and are probably right) and after pulling off the glue, IMMEDIATELY spritz the brush and wipe over both sides.

This kills the static, and then evaporates. Slide into Mo-FI sleeve, and you're done.

Thanks to WaynerN for the tip on the Discwasher brush, which, so far, has been its solitary saving grace (removing static).
 
^Thanks for the tip. I have to find my old Discwasher brush. Those MoFi sleeves are great...gives the LP that special look. Saves the picture inner sleeve too from seam splits, wear and the like. Just came to mind my Lennon "Greatest Hits" promo Quiex II pressing will be another in the line. A few EPs too.

When I join a forum, I usually stay around. There's loads of threads to peruse here.
 
I've done about 40 or so albums so far using an old TT and Titebond full strength, laying out the spiral with about a half cm gaps. With the platter spinning, I spread out the glue with one of those plastic scrappers you get with those round flat baking stones. it works pretty good. i actually let some of the glue dry on one of the edges and it has a nice smooth surface that the wet glue glides under when spreading it out.

I have not had any issues with not being able to pull off the dried glue in one nice clean sheet. It does produce a tremendous amount of static though. I will definitely try the alcohol and water afterwards to get rid of it.

what is the purpose of using the Titebond at half strength though? Just to save on glue?
 
Verdicts:

"A Night At The Opera" - Queen [U.K. pressing]: G+ to VG
"Dark Side Of The Moon" - Pink Floyd [U.K. pressing]: G+ to VG+
"We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll - Black Sabbath [U.K. pressing]: G to VG
"Deja Vu" - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young: G+ to VG+
"Stranger In Town" - Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band: G+ to VG

Still have to test after treatment:

"Live" - Dire Straits [Quiex II pressing, promo copy]
"The John Lennon Collection" - John Lennon [Quiex II pressing, promo copy]
"Greatest Hits" - Linda Ronstadt

The effect has been noticeable...there are still some crackles but not as pronounced as it was or as numerous. The sonics are clearer and cleaner. I'm thinking of re-running the process again on some but I don't think I would for now. Bought a gallon of TiteBond II on Sunday as I used the 16 ounce bottle already.
 
I must have missed it somewhere in this gargantuan thread but anyone tried to glue clean a colored vinyl LP?
 
Tried this for the first time this weekend on an album that I picked up at the antique mall on Saturday. Looked very nice visually but side a was a mess of clicks and pops, even after a wet cleaning.

Laid on a pretty even coat of Titebond and spread it with a business card. Peeled it off this morning followed by a wet cleaning. The difference was huge, made an unlistenable side much, much better. This will be my last resort method for albums that are still noisy after wet cleaning.
 
OK... Now this method is somewhat becoming an obsession. :) The obvious effect is the music seems "freed" up. The Rondstadt LP which was crackly before is sounding very, very good. On all the LPs, the in between tracks has been clean...whatever noise has been reduced from muted to non-existent. The vinyl come out nice and glossy with a bright sheen. After the glueing...I run each LP through the Spin Clean just for good measure. Generally pleased with the results.

Right now...curing are the first three Led-Zeppelin albums. I slathered them each with a generous helping of the glue. I've kept them all in near excellent condition all these years. Whether the glue will have much of an impact remains to be heard.
 
This discussion has amazed me (and amused me, at times) in more ways than one. When I found it this morning, I was slightly skeptical at what I was reading but, after the 10th page of trial and error, I decided to give it a try on an old 45 that I had. I used the Titebond III and had excellent results. My first round of amazement.

I actually took the time and read all the way from the first post to the last, amazing me yet again... and most of the posts kept my interest the whole way through. I'm keenly interested in any type of way to get better sound from my old LPs... and this thread has definitely filled that bill. Now, I can't wait to dig out the old records I've already recorded to the computer and converted to mp3s and do them again. Most of my vinyl is in really good shape - however, the majority is over 40-50 years old and has more than its fair share of dust and build-up in the grooves.

It's also amazed me that this thread has stayed active for over 8 years. I thought that I was one of the only nuts around who still looked for and collected old vinyl. To find so many here that still spin vinyl and are looking for ways to improve the sound was encouraging, to say the least. Thanks to all of you who have contributed here and for the knowledge that you've shared.

There's no other recording media, in my opinion, that carries the same 'true-ness' of sound as vinyl. As a musician, digital media has always had a flat sound while all the harmonics are still reproduced in vinyl. In a noisy environment, digital media is great - such as in a car. However, when I'm at home and it's quiet, I love to pull out the old vinyl just to hear the 'ring' and 'chime'.

Anyway, thanks again for an amazing, amusing and useful discussion.
 
...from the untitled fourth album to Coda, all are glued up Side 1 first. Side 2 will treated tonight before I turn in. The colored vinyl bootleg turned out hassle free. Playbacks oncoming...
 
I can now glue a side in under 1 minute. Leave for work, flip, and do the other side. All done!


You could use something like this:

wqXuUEEIxQ-UC9zhY_oLtY7ugP1vLGRiz1wWxOt5dN_-6wPZSixwo-djZw8EkGkqf9MvG65QVedPc5GVMypSbztzjtRerms3jqE79_uuLh6dfWcWwmc0jihbWaRhve8Iy0mv3L4RPx9DetXASeJd5Swq-E5ph0mlVgvCcwlgJQzDuyVXa_0Te8bz1x5A9BVO82B5YX_BeQmVJYYZDgwEYPkiHH35qDI3OxqBXgSgqZTsXakNj9fSc73scpleqqjQrt0c8frOR-ii6FRcs4DAqlUBwb7YtwXUH6lXkncP5p_a6erNl9Br1EC9y39oTcsZpZPW1XGVXoSnh2iBCVVbbx78JoxNU61HSM-inUo-Rdg4VS_r9FcbED9OZ2l8B2RQs1EM7bZTDcgbOTClLeKe9zqpJF-sew6rsY7M2VTTRObdgU-xPsYR0vtWSFq6PZwrz3bYudMXjr-b5MRiWVA9td8r5xmM0OoDXbcC5EjDE-qgtTO4giPhmQhQe7UfViMB4SWiG37It0mC8ZXylP1QAaYH5WN3zLEv6p2H8fdfbHM=w717-h955-no



Glue one side then flip it over and glue the other side.

9jqaMJW3hMpJ6aU3UGerBgGHaP1PQZa0GOeFLt8Qfa34CIqjpUa2_-MXvnVGdj6ZMV79mEy2SOGCq2S-UxcMuPjpm4h01n6FaBRazqo0zNHuku0Z5Ng5T8_-XieIcuAY1hoPGsfYC4MqO3tvGtT7qNrWz9UdGemh3959VQwa-im3uTe70m5X888B-BQfCQnrI8MkAfOSmUlIor9bIUe4IoWz3I8nW5xsCOl3JEfFbJBEdjKe2uBe31K3vweTsECUMYHHLz6Z82foxF-GY1g9WHG50BcXmRlu0zqbcfUYp3dIP2BRpSwHX8_G77r-W8zNInApehIxULt1mre6oTadcqHwcQxmI6UuUJRp39VJFj0psqbI9xjERAWV7wRgFLEJ7LTZc-zUXh2vF1OIRZOvmJeX7I8hVjd9C0kJf1I4cHcIJ4CjValk_cEiJRLi8wyZ5BoIIbt7I8rbeUe3W9kzArZBrE-TnwjOvnO6EEDa4Jys_wJlzY8uRbkWWV_Tgaa7kPPLZLs8nX-eaTMosqQOC8d_sjFzTIsFXWQbQcMvlXU=w717-h955-no


So, when you come from work, record will be ready for peeling and listening.
 
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