It would not surprise any of you to know that I am a record collector. Many of us here at WFMU would lead much more spacious and comfortable lives if our record collections didn't take up the square footage it did. So
be it. I am always reading the latest articles on how to take care of these precious pieces of vinyl better; how to resurrect a bit of warped garage sale vinyl, and the safest way to re-stick labels to said round flat plastic pieces. I read this article a little while ago about using wood glue to remove dirt from records. My brain kept bugging me to try it, so after about a year of dawdling, I did. Read the entire article if you wish, it's very informative as to why wood glue won't adhere to vinyl, and other questions you might have before diving in. As interesting as it was to do, I heard no difference on my subjects! I could see a bit more of a sheen to them, but I recorded each record before and after and found
no real noticeable difference. I did this experiment with a couple of garage sale 45s, and maybe they were as clean as they were going to get. Regardless, I thought I'd show y'all some of the progress pix I took-of course, the result could have been far better, but you, dear reader, get me with failure as well as with triumph. The first pic is the glue application before the "easy removal tags" have been added. The
second photo is (yes, eagle-eye, it's a different record) how the record looks in it's drying state: glue smoothed out by use of a credit card, and easy removal tags in place. The last two are before and after shots of one of the 45s I used in the process. Slight difference in sheen. As for
my garage sale "finds", I'll share with you this week's lot: a Phil Silvers die-cut cover
of the Broadway show Do-Re-Mi, which was about jukeboxes and part of the "music industry". The record is in great shape, and I love the Hirschfeld-esque illustration of Silvers on the cover. A second art-related find is the album by Sailcat, with
cover art by none other than Mad Magazine's Jack Davis - see an amazing collection of his works on this Flickr album I found. As far as 2-pieces go, Sailcat pales in comparison to Dark Castle- live pics here, who are on tour with Nachtmystium and Zoroaster into October. Photos taken from the Knitting Factory
show this past week. Top pic = Dark Castle, bottom pic = Nachtmystium. And, no, the vocalist for Nachtmystium does not sport a mohawk; it's just one of those action photos! Dunno if you'll hear Sailcat on a future edition of the Fun Machine, but you can be sure there'll be some Dark Castle, Nachtmystium and Zoroaster soon! Out of the three, Zoroaster has the most recent release (their third), is called Matador and is on the E1 label.
Boy, I thought I'd tried just about everything on my LPs, but this is a new one for me. Back in the day, some company sold a silicon based product that did this same thing. I don't see how the wood glue would be any different though. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: K. | September 25, 2010 at 12:20 PM
I've heard of that trick before, but also have never tried it.
I've only had or found a few LPs and 45s that have needed that kind of treatment.
My equipment situation has also been less-than-ideal, so I can't judge sounds in a realistic, before and after scenario. I also suspect that some LPs and mainly 45's on budget labels simply have poor pressings. I have a few priceless religious weirdo records that - while relatively pristine - have such poor sound that it sounds like dirt or needle wear and even one that's mastered poorly so that the audio waveform appears brickwalled and distorted, even though it's ripped below 0db.
I only mention all of this as I used to suspect that the culprit was dirt (mildew, etc) and after cleaning, was disappointed with the results.
Posted by: DJ ManRich | September 25, 2010 at 02:50 PM
some records will always sound like crap because they are made of crap - many budget (and some big-time) pressing plants would buy up old records, boil them
in a vat to (mostly) remove the labels, and then grind them all up and feed it into the presses. so if you ever get a record with what looks
like a piece of paper in it, it is!
Posted by: craig | September 26, 2010 at 02:14 AM
A good bit of the old useless information.
The original "Magic Lantern Slide Projector" was invented in 1676 and was called the Sturm Lantern.
It progressed through the 1800's and was used as an apparatus for displaying photographic images.
Lantern slides lasted into early 1900's and in 1950 was replaced by the Kodachrome three-color process made 35mm slides less expensive to produce than lantern slides.
Posted by: Ken the Talented Artist Showcase guy | October 06, 2010 at 07:16 PM
Never too old to learn.*
Posted by: taobao | November 14, 2010 at 09:49 PM
My equipment situation has also been less-than-ideal, so I can't judge sounds in a realistic, before and after scenario. I also suspect that some LPs and mainly 45's on budget labels simply have poor pressings. I have a few priceless religious weirdo records that - while relatively pristine - have such poor sound that it sounds like dirt or needle wear and even one that's mastered poorly so that the audio waveform appears brickwalled and distorted, even though it's ripped below 0db.
Posted by: Vincent Cassel | March 30, 2012 at 04:34 PM