Poor Man's DIY RCM

First thing, DON'T let the wife catch you building this! When she asks if you've seen the crevice attachment for her vac, just reply "No, Dear".


The end is cut square and filled with hot melt. The "cleaning pad" is cut out of a replacement pad for an edger painting tool at the local wally-world. The pad is plastic backed, and I attached it with GOOP, which holds it tight until its dirty, and then I can peel it off for replacement. I haven't left one on more than a few hours, it may become more permanent over a longer period of time.

This thing seals so tight I can hardly move the record, and thus the attachment was born. I put the "peg" through the spindle hole and turn on the vac. It sucks the record up to the tool and I can now turn the record with one hand while I hold the tool suspended with the other. I lay it back down on a towel when I'm done and turn the vac off, it drops the record.



(In the photo above, the pad has already been removed. I just propped it back in place for illustrative purposes!)

The pad gets dirty quick (that's also a reflection of the condition of my albums!) and it is a little bit of a grind to keep cutting these pads out. Anybody want to chime in with another idea for a pad on this thing?

Here's a dirty one:


And the photo makes it look cleaner than it is! In real life, the bristles are almost black.

Next step is to find a sleeve for the bolt to make the records turn more smoothly. After that, I want to add a "choke" to the back to help control the air flow/suction level - this thing can make the vac motor whine!

Don't use a choke put a couple of holes in your "end cap" with a drill bit that will allow some air pressure to enter your wand when it's on the album.

Nice job on that pickup tool, but what you really need to get is some sort of scrubbing brush. All those bristles do is dig the dirty water out of the groove, but the real scrubbing should happen BEFORE you apply your tool.

Get/make some DIY soultion (3 parts distilled water, 1 part 91% isopropyl rubbing alcohol, and a drop of dish soap/gallon of solution) and apply it to the record. Spread it out and let it sit a second to solubilize the grunge, and then hit it with some sort of brush; any of that painter's pad you have left would probably be a good start. Scrub up a storm and then hit it with your tool to remove all the water and dirt you've loosened. Vacuum it dry and give it a nice clean sleeve to sit in and you're all set.

This is good for pre-wet cleaning on dusty moldy records. Like Andyman said you still need to do your wet clean with a Nitty Gritty brush or something else and then maybe have another one of those attachments for your wet dry vac. Not the speediest of methods but I'll bet it would make a huge difference.

Already scrubbing prior to vac! I had been just scrubbing and rinsing, with not-so-stellar results. Actual workflow:

1. Two microfiber towels laid out on counter.

2. Distilled water rinse over sink.

3. Side 1 scrub with solution (same as above recipie) and soft natural bristle brush.

4. Lift w/vac and spin 2 revolutions.

5. Drop on 2nd towel, flip and repeat.

Mark W. said:

Don't use a choke put a couple of holes in your "end cap" with a drill bit that will allow some air pressure to enter your wand when it's on the album.

Click to expand...

What I want to do is put a sliding door ("choke") at my thumb position on the wand, so I can control the suction without putting such a load on the vac motor. The holes will do it, but I also want control.

ozmoid said:

Already scrubbing prior to vac!

Click to expand...

The black residue on the cleaning pad represents 6 records I had already cleaned by scrubbing/rinsing previously (some more than once, in an effort to reduce popping and crackling) , and 3 albums that had never been cleaned.

Out of the 9, I have 5 that are in the clean play category, 2 that are in line for another run to see if they improve, and 2 that are unplayable.

What I want to do is put a sliding door ("choke") at my thumb position on the wand, so I can control the suction without putting such a load on the vac motor. The holes will do it, but I also want control.

Click to expand...

Go find an old electrolux slide around type vac. at the goodwill etc.. already has the choke built in right where attachment hooks on.

Steve