I took some "Before & After" microscope shots of a record I cleaned this morning. Wow

[Thunderbox]

Huh. The thread you created about not using a vac implied you were already using a scope.

I have an optical scope and that is why I couldn't post pictures. I use but the one I ordered is a digital one.

I just picked up a USB microscope last week and I've been having a blast with it. :tresbon:

Thought I would take some shots of a used record I bought last week which looks to be in VG+ condition, no scratches, fairly shiny, a bit of dust on it. Obviously needs a wash.




Here's the record:

This is what the record looks like under the scope at 150x magnification:

This is what the record looks like after I have used the carbon fiber brush for a few revolutions. Some of the dust seems to have gone away but there are still particles in the grooves:

And this is what the record looks like after being washed and vacuumed on my record cleaning machine:

I'm still learning how to use the scope at higher magnification. Apologies if the pics are not "crisp enough".

Just thought I would share what I saw.

Thanks for viewing.


......

Great pics. I Had a microscope show up but I think I have to have a TF card installed for it to work on my computer. Otherwise it would be next to useless.

 

[Thunderbox]

I have always thought carbon fiber brushes are pretty much a scam. Dust "removed" from the record is not held in the brush and is just redeposited onto the record. A Discwasher brush with directional fibers is much better. The dust is forced up into the material where it stays.

Doug

And dries and is rubbed into the next poor record. If a device does not remove the dirt maybe it isn't the best way to preclean records for playing.

 

[Aerobat]

20,000 Hz undulations in a groove are smaller than the wavelength of visible light, so forget about using a microscope. Electrons fly right through vinyl there's no use of an electron microscope either. Just do whatever you think you need to do to clean, and play them. FFS

 

[Doug G.]

And dries and is rubbed into the next poor record. If a device does not remove the dirt maybe it isn't the best way to preclean records for playing.

Well, this is basically false. What you do is remove the debris from the Discwasher brush so it is clean for the next record. It is only common sense. Also, you don't always need to use the liquid.

I have been using a Discwasher for many years (since they first appeared) with excellent results.

There were many lies spread about Discwashers when unscrupulous hucksters were pushing carbon fiber brushes, such as the nonsense that the Discwasher brush pushes dust/dirt down into the grooves. Silly.

And, what are you going to do, stick the record into a record-cleaning machine every time you want to play it? totally unnecessary.

Doug

 

[Thunderbox]

Well, this is basically false. What you do is remove the debris from the Discwasher brush so it is clean for the next record. It is only common sense. Also, you don't always need to use the liquid.

I have been using a Discwasher for many years (since they first appeared) with excellent results.

There were many lies spread about Discwashers when unscrupulous hucksters were pushing carbon fiber brushes, such as the nonsense that the Discwasher brush pushes dust/dirt down into the grooves. Silly.

And, what are you going to do, stick the record into a record-cleaning machine every time you want to play it? totally unnecessary.

Doug

I don't think anyone has suggested that a person should clean for each play. How do you remove the debris from the brush?

 

[tourmax]

I don't know why some people get so worked up about who does what before playing records with regards to cleaning. If someone wants to ultrasonic clean their records and stylus before each play, so be it. If someone wants to pull 'em right out of the sleeve and drop the needle on it, so be it. Neither are right or wrong. I don't see any need to dismiss, belittle or otherwise "demean" anyone else just because you think they do too much....or too little. Meh, whatever.

But the topic got my curiosity up, so I'd thought I've give some "uncleaned LPs" a look under my stylus microscope setup.

Nothing complicated or expensive (I might have a total of 50 bucks in the whole setup), just a thrift store scope with a few additions/modifications for looking at stylus tips for wear patterns:






First up is a promo copy of Rush: countdown that just arrived this morning by mail. No sleeve, just the jacket. Onto the microscope and an iphone pic through the eye piece:



Hmmm. Yeah, there's enough there that I'd like to clean it first. Some (apparently) hairs, maybe some skin flakes, perhaps some grains of silica (IE: dust/dirt). Some on top of the track, some clearly down in the track. That's about 150X, any greater and you begin to look at almost individual tracks. I tried it at 250X (stylus tip inspection magnification) and I was basically looking down at the bottom of a single track. Too close for this exercise. 100/150x is pretty much the "sweet spot".

Next up is a record I picked up in a group buy. It has some pretty good mechanical damage (IE: scratching) so it's just been siting around. More specifically. in the garage without a sleeve. Fleetwood Mack: Tusk... if it matters. Woodworking is done out there so it's good and dirty:



Oh boy, lots of stuff down in the tracks on that one! Not unexpected, more so when considering where it had been languishing. In all fairness, this disc was subjected to an environment that no "playable" LP would get, so it's super dirty.

And they're now in the US cleaner for a 30 min cycle. When done, I'll post up pics of the results.

I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm just curious of the difference of before and after.


I should probably pull one of my "clean" records out of it's sleeve and see what that looks like too....those typically come out of the sleeve and right on to the platter....

 

[tourmax]

Well, "TUSK" came out pretty clean, even if it's not really a "player":



Quite impressive considering how "dirty" i was when it went into the US cleaner.

Countdown seems to have held onto a few "flecks", so it's going in for another 30 minute bath. Out of curiosities sake, I grabbed one of the carbon record "sweeps" I have lying around and made a couple passes over the offending "flecks" and put it back under the microscope.

Nothing. All of it (from what I could see) was still there. So the carbon brush seems to do mostly what I had always suspected: it will sweep away things that are too big to get into the tracks, but not really anything in the track itself.

I think I might go looking for a USB scope now. Something that's quick and easy to setup and at least get a 50-100x look at the tracks. They're pretty affordable, decent ones often found for a bit less than 50 bucks.

I usually US clean a record when I get it (new or used) and then the entire collection usually gets a cleaning once a year. I don't have a lot of vinyl (couple hundred maybe), so it doesn't take long to cycle them all through the cleaner. About a day, day and a half. The rest of the time they just come out of the sleeve and on to the platter.

So it seems it's worth at least having a quick look at a record once out of the US bath. If you're going to go through the trouble of "deep cleaning" it in the first place, might as well do as good a job of it as you can....

 

[tourmax]

Found on amazon for a few bucks over 50 CAD:



Free returns so not much to loose to try it. if it's good enuff, I'll set up a little turntable to set the records on so I can give em a slow rotation to check out how good a job the US cleaning was. I've got a couple old BSR junkers that can donate their platter to a rig.

You'll never get everything off a record, but a slow spin and inspection/look will give me a general impression of whether or not a second cycle through the US is worthwhile or not.

 

[Thunderbox]

This is a question, not an implied answer - Is it necessarily so that distilled water will not leave any minearal spots? As soon as the distilled water comes in contact with any other material, there is the possibility of dissolving or leaching out chemicals from that material. I suspect that vinyl itself would be pretty impervious to water (which is a pretty effective solvent for a lot of materials), but mold release, dust (and if you are cleaning old copies of Surrealistic Pillow, bong water residue), and so on might lead to needing careful rinsing and vacuuming.

I agree, distilled water stops being distilled water when it gets any contaminates in it. Practically any time it is used as a solvent for cleaning. Just make sure your rinse water is either filtered or changed when it looks the slightest bit dirty.

 

[tourmax]

2nd time was the charm. 'Countdown" came out crystal clean after the second US. Not a speck or fleck to be seen.

Seems there's some value to giving the record a quick magnified look after cleaning because the first time it came out, the surface looked as clean as any new vinyl does, yet there was still particles in the tracks.

Plays crystal clear. Not a click, pop, tick or crackle to be heard anywhere.....

 

[billyz]

I started with a Disc Doctor system and manually cleaned and dried in a dish rack. It was a massive improvement over the old brushes. Then someone gave me a Nitty Gritty record vacuum and it was another improvement. I seldom hear ticks anymore.

Another impressive improvement was going to the best stylus types. Like, Fine Line, and other similar stylus types.