Cleaning smaller records

Before buying my VPI, I cleaned my 70 or so 45s from junior/senior HS days on my manual Nitty Gritty. I simply covered the unneeded portion of the suction slot with a small sheet of plastic. It worked just fine. But if I ever want to clean them again, I'm SOL just like Zowie (but I like the idea of trying a trashed LP under the 45).

For those not familiar with various RC machines, perhaps I should explain more on my observation above.

My Nitty Gritty had an up-facing suction slot to vacuum off the cleaning solution from the underside of the record. When placing any record smaller than a 12" LP, a portion of the slot was open to the air, thus vacuuming the record surface was diminished. By taping down a small plastic sheet over the exposed slot, this forced the vacuum to only the record surface area. Also, as a manual machine, requiring turning the record by hand, it was easy to control the rotation while vacuuming the record.

VPI designs are just the opposite. The vacuum slot is in an arm which is swung over the record to contact it from the top. It might be possible to block off a portion of the vacuum slot on this arm, but not nearly as easy as on the fixed slot of the Nitty Gritty. VPI offers shorter vacuum tubes but as Zowie noted in the OP, they are expensive.

Too bad since in the case of my old 45s, the sonic quality on some of those once cleaned was a big surprise.