I recently got this record for very cheap after the previous owner assured me that it was in excellent condition, except for the fact that it was extremely dirty. According to him, it should be perfectly fine after a deep cleaning with an RCM.

I don’t have an RCM but, as the loyal advocate of the wood glue cleaning method that I am, I thought it would be a good idea to test it with this “extremely dirty” record.

The record was in fact in very poor condition because of the years of dirt adhered to it. I could have washed it beforehand, but I decided to leave the “dirty work” in its entirety to the glue. The only thing I used before playing the record for the first capture was my Audioquest carbon fiber brush to remove superficial dust. After recording, I applied a moderately thick layer of wood glue over the entire side A (minus the label, of course) and spread it uniformly. I usually do this before going to sleep at night, so when I wake up in the morning the glue has dried completely. Peeled it off, passed the carbon fiber brush again, played the record for the second capture and… well, you can hear the result. I’m not saying that fluids like Discwasher D4 don’t work, but none of them beat wood glue in my experience. The only thing that I think may be even better is a vacuum-based or ultrasonic RCM.

The only drawback of this cleaning method? It’s not for the impatient. But fortunately I’m not one of those. If you are like me and love vinyl records as much as I do, I can’t stress the effectiveness of wood glue as vinyl record cleaner enough.

The song is the cover of Eddie Floyd’s “Knock On Wood” by singer Amii Stewart that became a disco hit in 1979. Absolutely no noise reduction of any kind was applied to the audio track in this video.

(00:00) Video intro

(00:14) 01. Knock On Wood (before cleaning)
(07:25) 02. Knock On Wood (after cleaning)

Numark TTXUSB turntable – Nagaoka MP-500 phono cartridge – ART DJPRE II phono stage preamp – Vinyl record vinilo maxi-single