Got an LP cleaner you want to make money on?

ctsooner: Uh oh... Now you've done it! Opened up a whole can of worms going out to listen to new equipment! But I'm always glad to hear people enjoying listening to LPs either again or for the first time.

And well the answers to some of your questions is part of why I posted this here. To maybe get a little conversation going on what to do with those LPs that may benefit from a cleaning. I buy quite a few thrift shop LPs many of which are in pristine condition, others not so much.. I don't waste my time if the surface isn't still shiny, but even then there can be dust on them that can lead to lots of pops and snaps. But after cleaning them the difference is remarkable and makes what would be difficult to listen to really enjoyable again.

But the cost of a good quality record cleaner can be staggering. So I was hoping to hook up those owners of these cleaners and who may be willing to offer their services a chance to get together.

As far as how often you clean I guess that's a personal preference, but let your ears tell you I guess is the best way to know. Less messing around with the surface to me is best, but if it gets too snap poppy it's time to do something. If the inner sleeves are really in bad shape and you think that by sliding the record back in there might just make it dirty again you can replace it, but having all the original stuff that goes with an LP to me is best. I have bought on eBay some new ones to have around to replace some that are missing in some of these thrift shop purchases.

Thanks for your response ctsooner

I'd be willing to have vinyl-philes in CT rent time on my Loricraft PRC-3. Cleaning fluids and instructions regarding best practices could be part of the deal. Flexible terms! Maybe even "FREE" if you clean one of my LP's (to my standards) for each one of yours. Warning: my standards are not easily attained. :-)

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Ctsooner,

Once an LP is cleaned thoroughly, it should not need wet cleaning again. If it does, that just means it wasn't really clean the first time.

An occasional brush to remove stray cat hairs and specks of airborne dust should be sufficient. The only other thing required is neutralizing static buildup before and after each play. Static charges on vinyl attract dust like a magnet from miles around.

New inner sleeves are imperative IMO. My RCM cost $2M and it takes 20mins/side to get an LP truly clean (by my, somewhat hysterical standards). I'm not about to slide a carefully and REALLY clean LP back into a dusty, dirty, static-prone sleeve. I also put each newly cleaned and jacketed LP, and its cover, into a new outer sleeve.

Whether you, with a limited budget, should buy a RCM is an interesting question. It depends in part on the size of your record collection. If you don't have (or expect to have) many records, it might be more efficient to "rent" time on someone else's machine... per the OP's suggestion. For about the same money you might end up with cleaner records than you could achieve with an entry level RCM.

Steam, steam. Yes, water is expensive but it works better then most 'magic' solutions. Oh, it is a labor intensive process so many will be looking for a 'set it and forget it' approach. Beware, VPI, is coming out with an ultra machine. This will keep the profit machine going for another generation.

I have a Ultrasonic V8 cleaner. Here in San Antonio we have a local audio club. The Ultrasonic can clean 8 records at a time. I offer to any member a free cleaning and so far no one has taken me up on the offer although a couple of people have expressed interest. I guess for most people it is too much bother
Alan

There is an ebay record vendor who touts steam, plus VPI, plus ultra-sonic cleaning of his used records for sale and if memory serves, he also offers a cleaning service for customers to send him their records to clean. If you can't find him, i'll try and dig out his name.
Frankly, given the fact that you can buy a VPI 16.5 for less than 600 US, I don't think it is worth the trouble to travel, ship and deal with handling of records by a third party. Add some AIVS No. 15, a couple MoFi brushes and a 5 gallon container of reagent water, and you are in business. Perhaps not a Loricraft or Ultrasonic, but will get you pretty far along in your quest for a relatively minimal amount of money. And the VPI machine will last forever.