Removing Old Mildew from Album Covers

[shartpants]

I bought this album a few years ago, and never got around to trying to clean it. It came like this, but I figured it was cheap enough to justify buying. The papery quality of the jacket makes it extra hard to clean I think. Any tips?

 

[shartpants]

The image wasn't showing up right. Not sure why.

 

[heavymod]

I can't see any of the photos. I recently went through this journey with some hiphop records - they were apparently from a flooded basement before I got them. After doing some research, I tried the "glue removal" method for the records themselves. Apparently mold eats the plastic, so that can be more than cosmetic damage. I found glue removal to be ... challenging. For the covers themselves, I wiped everything down with some pandemic surplus - oxvir tb, or somesuch. I did this with everything right away. ( I have an acquaintance who had a life changing experience with black mold - so I'm a bit paranoid/irrational about mold right now ) . After reading about how mold can spread to other records, I gave up on the album covers. trashed them all. I have kept the records, but have glued them a few times... seems there are always little bits left over - it's hard to get a clean "rip" of the glue. Then I sterilized the heck out of them. Way more effort that it was worth tbh.

 

[shartpants]

Yeah at this point I think it's stains rather than actual mildew. Not sure if anything would get it off as it might be part of the paper itself. It's not an emergency, though, and the record is so good that it's almost worth having despite the stains.

 

[gadget73]

the way that document recovery services deal with mold is to freeze-dry the items to eliminate the moisture, then they process the dried items through a radiation chamber to kill the spores. I work for a company that does the radiation part of that process.

Since I doubt you have a radiation cell at your disposal, just putting it out in the sun and letting the UV cook it for a day or two will probably get the job done just fine. Does a fair job on killing the smell too. At that point a very slightly damp towel will usually get rid of any dried dead mold that remains. Not really much to be done for any staining though. The goal with the doc recovery stuff is to kill the mold and stop things from getting damaged further.

 

[heavymod]

just putting it out in the sun

This made me cringe. I know not everyone lives in the desert like I do, but I had a visceral reaction to reading that

 

[NC_Bill]

I put album covers and inner sleeves in a tub, then treated with an ozone generator. I loaded about ten outer sleeves per treatment. tossed generic inner sleeves, but I did treat inner sleeves with lyrics or pictures. 40 minutes per set of 10. Spent a couple of days treating about 300 albums a friend sent my way. They all stunk. After treatment, I hung them on the clothes line.

Ozone generators are popular in the used car business for removing pet or smoking odors.

 

[onwardjames]

I do not see a problem with placing the record covers for awhile in direct sunlight.

I also employ a Magic Eraser to wipe them down. Seems to lift dirt and odors.