Can You Clean Vinyl Records With Alcohol

In that location is much debate among the vinyl community around the use of alcohol to clean vinyl records. Isopropyl alcohol, in particular, is pop with many collectors every bit a cardinal ingredient in homemade record cleaning solutions. But is it safe? Some collectors swear past information technology, others warn of potential hazards. To help shed some light on the topic, we've done a trivial further digging.

Many cleaning product manufacturers err on the side of circumspection when because alcohol as a record cleaning ingredient. In our previous interview with GrooveWasher founder, Steve Chase, he explained why the creator of the original 1970's Discwasher, Dr Bruce Maier stayed clear of loftier amounts of iso booze when cleaning vinyl records. "Dr Maier cautioned confronting fluids with loftier concentrations of iso alcohol," explains Steve. "He stated that iso alcohol can remove plasticizers from the vinyl and make the groove brittle. Our G2 Fluid does not incorporate any iso alcohol. Some experts take pride in using high iso booze to clean their records. Just it is not an effective hard surface cleaner. It evaporates too quickly to remove the contaminants. Try cleaning any difficult surface with alcohol and you lot will come across how poor a cleaner it is. The grime dries back onto the surface before yous can wipe it away."

GrooveWasher's concerns about isopropyl booze are also shared by the manufacturers behind the pop Disc Doctor, who state on their website that iso booze can "…deliquesce shellac surfaces, and crusade the leaching of plasticizers from synthetic plastic pressings making them brittle and discipline to excess wear." They don't rule out alcohol entirely, however, adding, "Methyl booze should also exist avoided; undenatured ethyl alcohol concentrations must be kept to a minimum."

Knowing that GrooveWasher contains a small amount of alcohol (merely non iso alcohol), I asked Steve Chase to elaborate further. "The alcohol version we employ dries a fiddling slower than iso, with near the same solvent and miscibility characteristics", he explains. "The first concern with a cleaning solution is to practise no harm. Y'all can clean a delicate difficult surface, like a vinyl record or shellac finished wood tabular array, with a loftier alcohol glass cleaner, but you may destroy the object in the procedure. Why endeavour to kill a fly with a hammer?! Equally an abundance of caution, one should have a bias toward a less powerful cleaning solution that may require multiple cleanings, instead of a powerful, possibly damaging fluid."

Despite business organisation from many tape cleaning manufacturers, at that place are enough of advocates for the use of iso booze. One commentator from the at present defunct website record-cleaner.co.uk wrote with conviction, challenge that isopropyl alcohol is safe. In short, "Near all records are made from Vinyl (polyvinyl chloride) which has splendid solvent resistant properties. The adventure of isopropanol in any dilution causing a reaction is theoretically incommunicable."

Our chief commentator, Steve is enlightened of these arguments and was quick to solidify their position. "One argument I've seen on the audio forums is the claim that high alcohol doesn't damage the PVC vinyl that makes up the bulk of the ingredients in record vinyl. However, merely because PVC vinyl is resistant to iso doesn't hateful nosotros should select it as a cleaning ingredient. The record may wait clean but has the dirt dried back in the grooves?"

"When we experimented with the chemical families that Dr Maier used for his Discwasher record cleaning fluids, we found reaction tables for PVC vinyl, like this 1. As yous can see, isopropanol doesn't react with PVC. Add acerb acid to it, all the same, and it melts PVC!"

"Given the choice, nosotros decided not to use isopropanol. It smells like a hospital and dries too fast, from our experiments, compared to the alternatives. We employ a small amount of alcohol (non-iso) in our G2 Fluid and SC1 Stylus Cleaning Fluid, mainly every bit a blending amanuensis. All of the ingredients in our fluids are water-loving and blend rapidly. The combination works well."

The smell of an alcohol-rich cleaner is rather unpleasant, as I was reminded when recently digging out an sometime container of Clear Groove, which has a much higher quantity of booze than GrooveWasher.

The nearly alarming merits about iso-alcohol is that it can remove the "protective coating" of the groove. So while they might sound better at first, there is reportedly a run a risk that repeated apply can irreversibly damage the groove.

However, when I dug deeper to discover information on this supposed protective layer, I couldn't find much information, anything I did find seemed to suggest that it's a myth. There'southward a good chance, I would say, that what they really mean here is the removal or leaching of plasticizers, as per Dr Bruce Maier'due south enquiry. Regardless, fears of iso booze'south result on the vinyl record surface are fairly widespread, only despite these concerns, the internet (and the market for that matter) is awash with cleaning solutions that comprise iso alcohol, ofttimes in quite high quantities.

Steve Chase added farther comment on DIY cleaning, suggesting that while it might be condom when used sparingly, it's non GrooveWasher'due south preferred or recommended arroyo. "Isopropyl alcohol, in low concentration to total volume, appears to exist safe to use on vinyl records", explains Steve. "Nosotros don't like it. But it is very popular with DIY record cleaning fluid makers. Some of the recipes we take seen are pretty scary. Again, we choose to employ an abundance of caution with our records."

So is it ok to clean vinyl records with booze?

The debate surrounding alcohol and vinyl records will continue for many years to come. I would love to be able to requite you a decisive conclusion to this article, simply the truth is, it's difficult to describe a precise resolution one way or another.

I would say that while there seems to be a solid statement for isopropyl alcohol in lower quantities, erring on the side of caution seems sensible in the longer term. I would echo Steve'south preference for a moderate arroyo that might crave yous to repeat the process, rather than a heavy-handed approach that may pose some chance.

There appears to be some danger should the iso alcohol mix with whatever acerb acid, and given that acerb acid is institute in vinegar, that alone presents some opportunity for problems (believe it or not there are some folk out there who volition advocate cleaning vinyl records with vinegar. Crazy).

If you do make up one's mind to use isopropyl alcohol as role of your cleaning process, I would at least recommend rinsing the tape after with distilled h2o to wash away any remnants left behind. In the example of shellac records, of course, booze-based record cleaners are a huge no-no.