Koetsu Rosewood - Best/safest way to clean stylus

Montaldo. Fill up a little glass jar with 3/4 91% Isopropyl alcohol, 1/4 distilled water. Get a small soft artist's brush, dip it in your solution and brush the stylus and cantilever clean. Go no further than 1/2 way up the cantilever. You can brush the stylus in any direction without fear of hurting it. I'll do this once a week or so. Between records I use a standard stiff stylus brush wiping back to front only.
I have news for you Last folks. Last is just Freon, Freon with various labels on it. Freon is a great solvent for non polar molecules like oil. It will to some extent clean your stylus and records. It leaves absolutely nothing behind to protect anything. I took a microscope slide and started dripping one drop of Last record preservative at a time on the slide allowing it to dry between each drop. After 50 drops I looked at the slide high and dry. Nothing. Not a darn thing. Everything had evaporated. There is nothing in Last besides Freon. Brilliant rip off. 

I've used two liquid cleaners--LAST and Lyra--for many years and have never experienced any problems.  They are solvent based, so it does make sense to follow Lyra's instruction of not playing a record immediately (Lyra says wait 10 seconds) in order to allow any softened adhesive to re-harden.  

With any liquid cleaner, it makes sense to be careful with application and not slather it all over the place.  Capillary action can, at least in theory, cause a liquid to migrate up the cantilever, regardless of whether it is a hollow rod or something solid, and that is what one is trying to avoid.  This is a concern that was raised with the LAST stylus preserver more so than their cleaner because the cleaner is volatile and will evaporate before it can reach very far.  The stylus preserver does not evaporate and it is sticky in consistency.  The concern is with this sticky stuff gumming up the suspension of the cartridge if it gets that far up the cantilever.  Again careful and judicious application is in order.

I would be a bit cautious with the sticky cleaners, like the Zero Dust, that one is suppose to dip the stylus. Because the cartridge suspension was never meant to be pulled in the opposite direction of playing a record, I would take care to very slowly lift the needle out of the goo.  I know someone who pulled the cantilever out of his cartridge using one of those things.

I used LAST for many years with no problems. But then I got a very nice table top microscope. Examining the stylus tip after cleaning by various methods  reveals to me that magic eraser is much better. However , I think it would be very dangerous to use magic eraser if you attempt to move either the cartridge body or the magic eraser itself while there is contact between the two.  I place the magic eraser under the cartridge body then I use the queuing device on my tonearm to drop the cartridge down on top of the magic eraser, making sure that the magic eraser is completely steady and motionless. Then I use the queuing device to pick up the cartridge. That’s all you have to do. There should be no need to rotate the stylus while it’s in contact with the he ME. That is the evidence based on using my microscope to examine the cartridge before and after. Probably ME will never be fully accepted  by audiophiles  as a way to clean the stylus, because it is too cheap, too easy, and too effective . And has no risk if done correctly.

@mijostyn,

If LAST is nothing but Freon, why has there not been a ban on it’s use? Also, why hasn’t it’s price skyrocketed over and above it’s already high price? Why no warning labels on the product?

I’m just wondering?

My experience is the same as LewM. I used a usb microscope and the ME makes the stylus spotless, unlike liquids or Onzo. Having someone else repeat that result makes me even more confident.

I guess the remaining question is the reality that ME can probably pull a bit on the stylus as the cueing is raised. as Larry mentioned. I think a possible way to reduce the risk would be to use a smaller patch of ME -- so lightweight that it could be picked up by the stylus if it got stuck. This would reduce the maximum pulling force possible on the stylus that might occur in the worst case, and would serve as a warning that the cartridge is getting stuck. I imagine the ME would release quickly once it moves a tiny bit as the stylus pulls it up. And it may never happen anyway.

I may cut a very tiny square of ME and weigh it to ensure it is a fraction of a gram or something ... Then cue the needle up and down a bunch of times to see if it picks up such a tiny patch of ME. Maybe there is an optimum weight of ME that allows the stylus to release but has little enough mass to avoid pulling too hard on the stylus.
(Who knows what "too hard" is though).

In the past I have watched to see if the cantilever is "pulled" downward as I raise the cartridge out of the ME, but have been unable to spot that movement.

Also: I asked the Koetsu distributor and he said there is no one best way that he knows of. He personally uses MoFi or Lyra SPT and worries that anything you dip the stylus into seems "too aggressive" to him, given the potential stress on the cantilever.