MOLDY records...

Peace ya'll! My boy just hooked it up with a ton of records! some are classic. Problem is, a good chunk of them have crazy mold on them! I dont feel like cleaning them individually so I was thinking, would it be a good idea to dip them all in some warm water and soap? maybe water and alcohol? I know not the entire record but just enough to get the record wet and start rubbing at the mold. Any suggestions?

Just dipping records in water and soap is not gonna cut it. You have to gently scrub off the mold with a water and bleach solution with a child's toothbrush. Mold is a plant growing and its gonna be a battle so get your french-maid on and scrub each one, one by one.

Ill-Green wrote:Just dipping records in water and soap is not gonna cut it. You have to gently scrub off the mold with a water and bleach solution with a child's toothbrush. Mold is a plant growing and its gonna be a battle so get your french-maid on and scrub each one, one by one.

1. brush & vinyl record = not a very good idea IMO (to be honest I never tried it. But I also will NEVER try that)
2. warm water (from the water tap) & vinyl record = not a very good idea. Vinyl dont really like teperature over something like 30 degree C / (86 degree F) and start to warp at higher temp. Vinyl also dont like the mineral that are in the water (chalk)

So I said it before and I say it again. The best method IMO is: mixture of destillated water and isopropyl and a few microfiber cloths (you need more the records you have to clean)
put the record on table or the turntable (you don't want to get your slipmat dirty so use the rubbermat that came with the turntable. If this get dirty you always can wash it)
moisten the record with the mixture, roll a "cigar" from the microfiber cloth and slightly rub it on the record (with the grooves)

If the record is very dirty I would hold it under the water tap to get off the heavy dirt. then dont loose time and clean it like I mentioned above.

Don't use the dirty area of the "cigar" on your next record.

And yes this is a lot of work when you have a lot of records but it's worth (except the music on them isn't really good )

peace

man, yall cats bug me out. if any record has feces, mold, or anything else besides the typical grime/dirt/dust I can't flux with it! garbage pal kids producers!

I had a similar problem of cleaning up lots of dusty & moldy records

Heard that Fairy washing up liquid was the thing, so gave that a bash.

I put a small amount in a basin full of tepid water. If you are going to do this then you have to use a very very small amount of Fairy as the soap will stick in the grooves. I dipped them first so that the big dusty chunks fall off before wiping, so they don't scratch the surface. Then I had a basin of clean tepid water to rinse them off & gave them a good wipe.

When I played the records the seem to have a few additional crackles due to the stylus ploughing through the residue left by the water. But a couple of plays seemed to sort it.

I know its not very audiophile but if you have a hundred records to do you can't be too anal, except for the really precious cuts. Not ideal but a thousand percent better then they were.

why would you dilute the isopropyl with h2o?


ive been told to use 91% isopropyl...

I've read somewhere that a higher concentration of isopropyl isn't good for the vinyl, but I dont know for sure ("net-knowledge" don't tell the truth most of the times)
BTW I mix it 70/30. Its strong enough for the dirt and I also save a few cent that I can spend on another moldy record

peace