How to Dry Records After Cleaning Without Scuffing Them
A washed record is a dripping record. A cloth scuffs it and a rack takes hours. Collectors have a faster way, and it starts with a tool from the garage.
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Somebody in r/vinyl had a record fresh out of their ultrasonic cleaner and wanted it dry. The cloth they'd been using scuffed the surface, so they asked the sub for a speedy way to dry a record.
Someone asked what kind of cloth scuffs a record, and the answer came with a test. An ordinary grey cloth from a hi-fi shop, and more noise after drying with it than after letting the same record air dry. It left dust in the grooves too.
Two owners had a different answer, a slotted wand that fits the hose of a wet/dry shop vac and pulls the water off the record as it turns.
If you wash records by hand or in a cheap ultrasonic tank and you're tired of waiting for the rack, this is what the people who own that wand say about it, including which vacuum not to put it on.
How long do records take to air dry?
A couple of hours to overnight, going by the people who wash by hand. The hand-washing routines on this site end with the record standing in a dish rack for a few hours.
The thread had free ways to hurry it along. A fan, which one reply jokingly explained is "an invention that moves air quickly." A hairdryer on cool. Warmer water in the ultrasonic tank, so it evaporates faster.
The case against the rack came from one reply, and it's about what's in the water rather than the wait. Whatever the wash loosened and didn't carry off, the oils and the release agents from the pressing, dries back onto the record if you let it sit. A vacuum takes the water and the dirt in it away together.
What is a Vinyl Vac?
The Vinyl Vac is a length of plastic pipe with a slot along one side and soft pads where the slot meets the record. The other end fits a wet/dry vacuum hose. A reply in a thread weighing it against a Spin Clean called it a bit of PVC pipe with a slot in it.
An owner on Stereonet, an Australian hi-fi forum, called it a vac attachment and nothing more. The maker's own page says about as much, that it's made to be used with a wet/dry vac.
The wet record goes on something that spins. The owner who's loudest about loving it bought a lazy Susan and glued a spindle to the middle with epoxy. The wand pivots on the spindle, you turn the record under the slot, and the vac pulls the water up through the pipe.
The person behind the big record-cleaning thread from earlier this year ends every record that way, sometimes with an anti-static gun for a finish. Asked whether it needs to air dry afterwards, they said it doesn't, and that it's completely dry once the vacuum has been round.
One owner who scrubs with a paint-edger pad first can play at least six albums without dirt on the stylus. Another has noticed a difference in every record they've cleaned.
The lazy-Susan owner says it works amazingly well, though it takes a while to do each one. One more waits until there's a stack to make the setting up worth it.
I like the results of the vinyl vac. I don't like the effort.
apastuszak, on the Vinyl Engine forum
That owner says it gets them all the way there on most of their records, with a few holdouts that still carry surface noise. They were weighing an ultrasonic tank to drop the vacuum step.
What vacuum do you need for a Vinyl Vac?
A wet/dry vac, never an ordinary household one. A reply in the Spin Clean thread warned that it will kill a hoover, a hoover being the vacuum you run over the carpet. Another said you'll need a vacuum that can take liquids.
On HiFi Vision, an Indian hi-fi forum, somebody who says they've spent forty years in the vacuum-cleaning trade gave the reason. Water in a dry vacuum shorts the motor windings, and a droplet is enough.
Small is fine. One reply in the drying thread suggested a small wet/dry shop vac with a record attachment. The owner who waits for a stack runs a small one too.
Another reply in that thread warned that a shop vac is too powerful and can damage a record, though the same person called the wand a good suggestion a few replies later.
The listing says the wand fits the two standard U.S. hose sizes, 1.25 and 1.5 inches. Look at the end of your hose before you order.
The wand is the cheap part. Two owners who priced the whole rig, vac included, put it at a few times the price of the wand. So the choice for anyone without a vac is a rig at that price against a dish rack and a wait.
Does the Vinyl Vac push dirt back into the grooves?
One owner on HiFi Vision thinks so. They switched to a filtered blower because, with the wand, the pads tend to press the dirt back into the grooves.
The owners who describe their routine use it after a wash, though. The paint-edger owner scrubs first, and the big thread's routine sprays and scrubs before the vacuum. Wash first, and let the wand's job be the water.
The other snag is fluid running under the record. The Vinyl Engine owner above found the side they'd just cleaned picking up suds from the mat it was lying on. A later reply in that thread cut the mat about an inch smaller than the record. The edge floats, and the drips fall off instead of creeping round to the other side.
Do you need one with an ultrasonic cleaner?
The owners argue it. The person who started the drying thread had an ultrasonic tank, and two replies pointed them at the wand.
In a thread weighing the wand against an ultrasonic machine, one reply saw only one reason to own both, a distilled rinse with the vacuum after the tank. Even that, they didn't think necessary.
The other side of that argument is on Vinyl Engine. A long-time member there points out that an ultrasonic tank doesn't rinse the cleaning fluid off. The best results, as they see it, come from a tank wash and then two distilled rinses with a vacuum.
If your tank leaves fluid on the record, a vacuum is the rinse step. A cheap tank doesn't dry the record either, as its owners will tell you.
Get the Vinyl Vac 33 for LPs, the 45 version if your crate is singles, and a lazy Susan with a spindle in the middle to spin them on. The first record to try it on is the one you'd otherwise leave in the rack overnight. Wash it the way you always do, run the wand round it, and put it straight on the turntable.
