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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
grimace OP
624 posts
 
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.
maineiac
649 posts
 
The only advantage I can see is being able to wash both sides at once. Otherwise, using the standard horizontal method with good fluid, brushes, and vacum will likely yield the same results. Since you have time to kill, I would suggest getting good rubber o-rings rather than washers. Every time I use my pressure washer I think about this possibility. Also, you will want to develop a filtering system for the solution so you are not washing in dirty solution. Keep us posted.
bdgregory
1,710 posts
 
I am afraid your suggestion of using suction cups to hold the LP on the vertical will not work
sorry I wasn't more clear . . . I sometimes think what I write is clear, but often leave out key points.

The reason I mentioned suction cups is they are readily available in a size that would just cover the label. I know they wouldn't hold via suction (most young boys figured this out, and I was one of them). They would need to be held in place by a clamp - either around the outside of the record, or a shaft through the center of them and the record with a fastener on the ends of the shaft (so the record ends up becoming a wheel on an axle).

Grimace - your notion of using rubber washers is the same idea I think, just different raw material. Depending on how you do it you'll need plate of some kind to clamp the washer . I did this on a freshman Engineering design project in the early '70s. I picked the suction cups because I didn't have to fabricate a hub, and could buy them at the local hardware store. It was primitive but worked perfectly, though my record cleaner was manual, no vacuum. I suspect you have the wherewithal to do a more elegant implementation.

George, sorry you had to go to all that trouble on your theory and implementation of suction cups ;-)
kenyonbm
141 posts
 
Bdgregory, where are these suction cups available?

Ken
bdgregory
1,710 posts
 
I recall buying them at a local hardware store. McMaster-Carr has them. The one I'm referring to is part # 53535A46. If you enter that part # in the search box on http://www.mcmaster.com/ it will take you to a diagram of it.
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