DIY Record cleaner.....

analog music reproduction discussion

DIY Record cleaner.....

Postby coop402 » Sun Jan 17, 2010 11:50 pm

I posted this On AK a long time ago...
I thought the diytube tribe might like to see it....
It is a hand made wet record cleaner.

You can see the side of my Yamaha PX-3 linear tracker


but if you want to play vinyl, make it clean.......

Did I ever freak you guys out with my home rolled record cleaner.
It uses a 16 rpm pittman gear drive motor.
Old pioneer direct drive platter and mechanism
25 dollar shop vac (which is way more powerful than the vpi),
and all the critical parts from a high end vpi cleaner.

Oh! not to forget the Toyota Celica windshield washer resevoir
and pump.

I works really, really, really well. Did I mention really?

Special thanks to old episodes of McGyver.

(Dogs name is Pop-Pop)


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Postby nyazzip » Tue Jan 19, 2010 3:15 am

i like the concept....although i would be paranoid that H2O would be seeping into places you didn't want it to. i have recently been pilfering a local pawn shop of their vinyl(mostly jazz, country, and loungy '50s and '60s stuff) with the dutiful mindset of a preservationist, saving rare recordings(Herb Alpert) before they are lost forever, yet i have no way to give them a good scrubbing. i just brush the surface off with an Ikea paintbrush and fuhgheddaboudit
i am slowly becoming convinced though, that underneath the pops and scratches, vinyl really DOES sound best...
<i>the poor craftsman blames his tools</i>
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Postby Geek » Tue Jan 19, 2010 4:22 am

This beats my air compressor + sportsball needle + old turntable.

Cheers!
-= Gregg =-
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Postby EWBrown » Tue Jan 19, 2010 10:00 am

Ahhh, nothing quite like a good squirt of "bug and tar remover" and a brillo pad ;-)

Which method works best on "Captain and Tenille" and any "disco" LPs... >8^)


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Postby nyazzip » Tue Jan 19, 2010 11:13 am

hey i like disco too! i picked up a Commodores hits record on my last trip....you know, "Brick House"....44 cents, why not
[:)
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Postby coop402 » Tue Jan 19, 2010 10:22 pm

I only use distilled water mixed with commercial record cleaning solutions. There are a ton of them. VPI makes a good one.

There are also a bunch of good recipes on the internet for making your own. It is cheap enough that I don't want to risk my albums. You don't really use much.

The best part is that the crud floats up after the brush gets to it.
Then the vacuum nozzle (which has a velvet strip) pulls all of it into the vac.

The best record cleaning solutions have something to keep mold from growing, which is something nobody used to think about. It is there, though.

Oh, as far as Disco. Man, I ended up with a bunch of Bee Gees, KC and the sunshine band, The Village People. I don't like Disco, but I can tell you this much. Play it and everyone smiles. It is worth it just for that.
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Postby coop402 » Tue Jan 19, 2010 10:24 pm

Hey Ed. I heard that a blowtorch can really make a Disco album sound better.

Don't try this at home kids. Just a rumor.
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Postby EWBrown » Wed Jan 20, 2010 7:42 am

The other perfect upgrade for any disco (especially BeeGees disco ) LP is to nail it up by the center hole on a target, and then rapid-fire about 25 .22LR rounds through it in a random pattern.

A single 12 ga shotgun blast with number 9 shot, will also work quite nicely ;-)

Makes a dramatic improvement in sound quality.

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Postby nyazzip » Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:53 pm

you would have enjoyed the "Disco Sucks" thing at Comiskey Park with "shock jock pioneer" Steve Dahl back around 1979-80, when they blew up a big crate of disco records in center field
don't even try to tell me you don't secretly love "Stayin' Alive"
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Postby EWBrown » Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:47 pm

To me "stayin alive" was one of those annoyingly catchy tunes that gets stuck in one's head all day long, after hearing it, to the point of impending insanity. Pure ear poison...

As I recall there was a pseudo-country-rock band named "Chuck Wagon and the Wheels", who did a cheerful little ditty called "Disco Sucks" back in the late 1970s. I think it still appears on Doctor Demento and Rollye James once in a great while in their "worst hits ever" categories.

Captain and Toenail's "Muskrat Love" (along with all of its parodies and sendups), and "Surfin' Bird" by the Trashmen are the perennial first or second place "winners". I consider "Surfin' Bird" to be the first "rap", about 20 years before that dreadful substitute for "music" officially got hatched.

Get the disk sander (150 grit) ready, I m gonna "clean" some albums ;-)


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Postby Slartibartfast » Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:54 am

Looking back on the history of the 70s, Disco was a lot better, before it went mainstream, with the likes of a Movie with John Revolta, the Bee Gees, and other lame mainstream disco "hits".
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Postby SDS-PAGE » Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:41 pm

Hey, that's one ugly Boston under your system. I have one too, but it's black and white. The uglier the the better.
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Postby coop402 » Sat Jan 23, 2010 10:19 am

hahahaha. Yep, that boston terrier is pop pop, named that because when I show up to the door she pops up and down on her front paws like a GD mental patient.

That picture is a horrible likeness. (red eye). She actually has bright blue eyes. Weirdest thing ever. A big brown circle around bright blue eyes. I work from home and she never leaves my side, ever.
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Postby coop402 » Sat Jan 23, 2010 10:43 am

Yes, very tube related I am sure...
Here is pop pop the audio specialist....

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Postby EWBrown » Sat Jan 23, 2010 4:12 pm

Now, she is ven a better "audio dog" than Nipper the RCA dog (listening to his master's voice thru the victrola horn)

Kinda starting to look like a canine version of Yoda ;-)

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