Old record cleaning

madmax

Part of my Chrismas present to myself was to take a few days and catch up on some stuff dealing with audio. Today I pulled out some boxes of old 78's and gave them a good cleaning on the VPI.

What a stink! They are old obviously and some had some mold but the smell... It smells like a dog pissed all over me and the house. Maybe its the RCA dog. Even now that I've been away from it for a few hours I can still smell it.

I guess eveyone celebrates Chrismas differently. Believe me, next year will certainly be different.

Merry Christmas to all!
madmax

danger boy

guess you could say you pissed away your Christmas this year huh?

madmax

Probably just piss poor planning...

hearingimpared

If those 78s were lacquer the solutions you used may have mixed poorly that could account for the smell. Like mixing bleach and amonia.

madmax

I used a non-alcohol based mixture which is said to work fine with the old 78's. The MFSL super wash. I think it was just all the "old" coming off. Talk about a difference in sound! Cleaning takes on a whole new meaning when you are talking about mold, sand, dirt, who knows what in grooves big enough to clean out with a toothpick! Actually, I'm thinking most of the smell was the old paper and cardboard covers. For now I stuck them in a garbage bag and put in the basement. When I get time I'll scan them and print out covers to go with the clean record/new sleeve. Not original but I can't deal with that smell.
madmax

hearingimpared

I did the same thing to my records that had become mold damaged. Every so often I go the garbage bag and pull a few out and give the once going over. I've kept them is a cool place so that rat **** mold wouldn't keep growing.