Dirty, Dirty LPs

At this point, it's highly unlikely that you're buying much new vinyl. Sure, there are a specialty pressings, 7-inches and hip-hop singles but if you own a lot of vinyl, it's used. Used vinyl is dirty vinyl. There is dust on the LP, mold on the jacket and probably dirt in the sleeve.

(For the record, the jacket is the outermost cardboard covering, and the sleeve is the paper jacket inside that. Sometimes the sleeve is called a liner.) Dirt makes the record crackle, and the needle dull. While a nice Zerostat static gun will remove the dust, but anything actually dirty like greasy fingerprints, or actual dirt... that stays put. Anything truly vile may will go directly to the soap and cold water stage. Discwasher straddles that line oh so conveniently. You don't have to do dishes to make room for the LP and it will clean anything short of bird poo and tar.

It uses a simple brush for dust and a cleaning solution made mostly of distilled water, but also containing a dash of sodium azide, a few drops of Isopropyl alcohol, propylene glycol, ethyline glycol and a surficant to lower surface tension. There are other recepies here. Peopel get a little anal abotu this, just avert your eyes at the words "esoteric drying."