DIY Record Cleaner Project - Need ideas


Since I'm taking a "vacation" for a few months I thought I'd try to build a record cleaner. I've been looking at the popular VPI models and a few of the others, and I'd like to go in a different direction. I'd like to do a machine that holds the record vertical and actually submerges the record in the solution - not including the label of course. It seems like it would be easy enough to use two padded washers on a long bolt to hold the record and act as a spindle without damaging the label. With commercially available fluids that should work well and clean both sides of the record at once, and with a dual bath using distilled water, rinse them as well.

In this kind of a set up, what kind of brush would be appropriate to 'scrub' the records? I obviously don't want to scratch them.

Also, short of hauling a shop-vac into the kitchen (really bad WAF) how would I go about drying them?

Thanks!
grimace

Showing 3 responses by grimace

I do want to vacuum them, but I'm looking for something smaller than a shop-vac in the kitchen to do it with.
On the question of how much solution, I suspect that I'm envisioning using more than most folks are used to using on platter machines. I'm thinking of putting the fluid in a trough and running the record through it with some sort of brush mechanism in there too. Then a second and probably third trough for rinsing. In a crude way, its not unlike a bar that uses three sinks in succession to wash glasses. Yes, you would ultimately have contaminants in the soap solution, but if you’re rinsing well and then vacuuming dry, how much could be left over on the playing surface (a loaded question, I’m sure)?

I actually think the troughs will be easy. As a prototype, just to test the cleaning part, I can even use three tubs. They don’t have to be connected or anything. Finding the correct brush will be a bit of a challenge, and of course the vacuum system.
Well, in any event, I wasn't planing on using suction cups. I think rubber washers holding the record on a bolt would be more stable.