Riders on the storm

[sonidos]

It was inconclusive since the LAST side seemed less noisey but sounded thinner.

Scott, that has been my impression too.

SY, that would be great. 5 seconds under the scope and then we can go right to discussing food and live music talk!

 

[h_a]

Riders on the storm

Maybe I'm the lucky exception but I find that most of my vinyl is very silent. In particular with my new phono stage design, I hear now and then when the tape machine is turned off

 

[bear]

SY, what does the water do?

Years and years ago I noticed that a record that was otherwise rather noisy (due to age, dirt, scratches - remember them? -) seemed to sound better when misted with some water.

I always wanted some of whatever externally applied mold release was used at the factory (if any was) to spray on records after I got them... new always sounds best.

_-_-bear

 

[SY]

It's the wet playing that does something. I haven't investigated the cause yet, but it absolutely ruined some of my discs (horribly noisy when played dry afterward, no amount of cleaning fixed it). Heard the same from other users of the wet-play system.

Now that I have access to an SEM again, I may revisit this.

 

[gpapag]

A few points:

1. From the videos I’ve seen (one of them below), the release has to be internal.
How It's Made - Vinyl Records - YouTube

I’ve read accusations for water-alcohol mixture (used to clean records) that it dissolves this self lubricant and dries-out vinyl surface , increasing playback noise. Any comments on that?

3. After you will analyse it, will you be able to trace the way it works on vinyl?

6. Can you remember if the material was vinyl (and not polystyrene)?

I did a one side LAST one side no LAST and was careful to always play both sides over almost 20yr

Scott, can you check if there is a noticeable difference of static electric charge between the two sides of this LP? You don’t have to use a surface charge meter, just some very small pieces of paper, or some long fiber (e.g. hair).

The thinner sound you mention, “smells” surface hardening.

George

 

[SY]

I'd be more worried about the alcohol leaching out the plasticizers, making the material more brittle. And yes, if I know what's in it, I can tell you what it does. I have some suspicions, none of which involve hardening, but data is better.

Definitely vinyl!

 

[Sweetsweetback]

From US5389281
Composition for Phonograph Record Preservation
A composition suitable for preserving vinyl phonograph records was prepared as follows:

Fomblin.RTM. Y25/6 (Montefluos, Milan, Italy) was mixed with Fluorinert.RTM. FC-40 (3M, St. Paul, Minn.), and the mixture dissolved in PF5060 (3M), to a final composition of Fomblin.RTM. Y25/6=0.1 v %, Fluorinert.RTM. FC-40=0.5 v %, PF5060=99.4 v %. The resulting formulation was filtered through a 0.2 .mu.m filter, and dispensed into a glass, air-tight bottle and sealed.

No assignee is listed that I could see, but one of the inventors lives in Livermore where last is headquartered. The chemical trade names are defined in The description. Interestingly, the record preservative is exemplified in the Examples section, but is not specifically claimed. The mix seems to be mostly per fluorinated hydrocarbons and polyethers. And an alkylated hexynol.

 

[Groove T]

All your questions can be answered by contacting the LAST factory in Livermore, California. A slightly different forlumation has been applied to tape recorder heads with similar wear reduction. It is not a new product but since so many people still play with LP's, I think it is something all should try and use. I still have some left over before I sold all my LP's a few years ago. A life times collection. But I am not sorry i did that.

And, again, NO it isnt a coating that comes off and gums up the stylus.

It is what i said it is. YOU need to check into it and get the use of it. Its a small family operation and never had the funds to go big. But if you want to preserve your records, you need it. I am not here to convince you of anything but to inform you.

See: www.lastfactory.com

Thx - Richard

Thank you for your answer.

I still have one bottle of LAST record preservative and two bottles of record cleaner. I did no more use that stuff after treating a few records with that stuff.
The record cleaner works good, but here they asked 35$ for 2 fluid ounces, thats mad. Since then i use a VPI cleaning machine with standard cleaning liquids with good success.

The preservative made the sound bright, thats why i did not like it.
I assume this happened due the*hardening* of the surface and gives a stronger resonance behaviour in the 20 Khz area.

So i put that stuff aside until now.

I assume LAST uses Fluor somehow in its formula. That would explain why it cleaned pretty good, but i have been told that it is not ideal for health and enviroment?

I would be willing to donate my LAST to SY for Analysis, but im living in europe, so the effort would be pretty high to send it over.

 

[SY]

If sweet's patent find actually represents Last, it is indeed a lubricant and would not harden the surface.

 

[bear]

for those of us, like me, who have no clue about most details in chemistry:

"Organofluorine compounds enjoy many niche applications in materials science. With a low coefficient of friction, fluid fluoropolymers are used as specialty lubricants. Fluorocarbon-based greases are used in demanding applications. Representative products include Fomblin and Krytox, manufactured by Solvay Solexis and DuPont, respectively. " (wikipedia)

"PFPE (Perfluoropolyether) Sold by DuPont under the tradename Krytox.[17] Sold by Solvay Solexis S.p.A. as Fomblin and Galden"

(wikipedia)

I am wondering about the coating on the record... mechanical spray pump aerosol, how do the record grooves all get coated? does the stylus move the stuff about? Or does this stuff try to self level and run around? And, does it ever harden, and/or does it thicken and create any height above the groove?

_-_-bear

 

[Groove T]

LAST preservative fluid came with a kind of a brush to apply on the records.

 

[SY]

bear, if it thickens, it would be because of dirt entrapment- once the solvent is dried off, they're pretty nonvolatile. The key is getting the wettability of the formulation correct so that the stuff doesn't clump up in the groove and transfer off to the stylus. Matching vinyl's surface energy is the basic requirement.

But again, the function here is lubricant, not "hardening" of the vinyl. The search for polymeric Viagra goes on...

 

[bear]

The last I saw was a pump spray bottle, iirc.

The stuff in the bottle with the brush I recall (30+ years back now) as being for the stylus?

Dunno...

Stuart, yes, "wettability" but I'm not seeing exactly how the stuff gets evenly applied, or if it matters... given that high pressure between the stylus and groove that was mentioned a while back, it might look like a ship plowing through the water, squeegee-ing the stuff along? Or maybe it ends up being molecules thick only?? Magic lube?

_-_-bear

 

[scott wurcer]

From US5389281
Composition for Phonograph Record Preservation
A composition suitable for preserving vinyl phonograph records was prepared as follows:

Fomblin.RTM. Y25/6 (Montefluos, Milan, Italy) was mixed with Fluorinert.RTM. FC-40 (3M, St. Paul, Minn.), and the mixture dissolved in PF5060 (3M), to a final composition of Fomblin.RTM. Y25/6=0.1 v %, Fluorinert.RTM. FC-40=0.5 v %, PF5060=99.4 v %. The resulting formulation was filtered through a 0.2 .mu.m filter, and dispensed into a glass, air-tight bottle and sealed.

No assignee is listed that I could see, but one of the inventors lives in Livermore where last is headquartered. The chemical trade names are defined in The description. Interestingly, the record preservative is exemplified in the Examples section, but is not specifically claimed. The mix seems to be mostly per fluorinated hydrocarbons and polyethers. And an alkylated hexynol.

Yes the viscosity was very similar the the florinert that we used in hot/cold baths.

 

[SY]

Or maybe it ends up being molecules thick only?? Magic lube?

Probably thicker than a monolayer. No magic, just the same as applying something like ArmorAll to your tires or Rain-X to your windshield, then wiping.

 

[gpapag]

Adsorption - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Surface energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Polymer adsorption - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Polyvinyl chloride - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Polyvinylchloride PVC (CAS Ref.-No. 9002-86-2)
Surface free energy (SFE) at 20 °C in mN/m: 41.5
Dispersive contrib. of SFE in mN/m: 39.5
Polar contrib. of SFE in mN/m: 2
Temp.coefficient SFEin mN/(m K): -

Solid surface energy data (SFE) for common polymers

(prepare yourself for writing a small article for the masses)

George

 

[gpapag]

It's the wet playing that does something. I haven't investigated the cause yet, but it absolutely ruined some of my discs (horribly noisy when played dry afterward, no amount of cleaning fixed it). Heard the same from other users of the wet-play system.

Now that I have access to an SEM again, I may revisit this.

I am thinking of the cooling effect water can have.
If the stylus warms up the vinyl at the tiny contact area a bit above 80 d. Celcius which is the Glass Transition temperature (Tg) of vinyl and then as the stulus moves forward, the warmed up tiny vinyl area will start to cool down slowly mostly through the mass of vinyl and much less through air. This, with dry playing.
When water is in the grooves (wet playing), this cooling down will be more abrupt. Can this have an effect in vinyl’s molecular rearrangement around Tg?

I copy (and underline) from
Glass transition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The glass transition of a liquid to a solid-like state may occur with either cooling or compression. The transition comprises a smooth increase in the viscosity of a material by as much as 17 orders of magnitude without any pronounced change in material structure.
The consequence of this dramatic increase is a glass exhibiting solid-like mechanical properties on the timescale of practical observation. This transition is in contrast to the freezing or crystallization transition, which is a first-order phase transition in the Ehrenfest classification and involves discontinuities in thermodynamic and dynamic properties such as volume, energy, and viscosity. In many materials that normally undergo a freezing transition, rapid cooling will avoid this phase transition and instead result in a glass transition at some lower temperature. Other materials, such as many polymers, lack a well defined crystalline state and easily form glasses, even upon very slow cooling or compression.
Below the transition temperature range, the glassy structure does not relax in accordance with the cooling rate used. The expansion coefficient for the glassy state is roughly equivalent to that of the crystalline solid. If slower cooling rates are used, the increased time for structural relaxation (or intermolecular rearrangement) to occur may result in a higher density glass product. Similarly, by annealing (and thus allowing for slow structural relaxation) the glass structure in time approaches an equilibrium density corresponding to the supercooled liquid at this same temperature. Tg is located at the intersection between the cooling curve (volume versus temperature) for the glassy state and the supercooled liquid.

George

Attached, a PVC formulation for vinyl records. This is for SY exclusivelly

 

[Groove T]

I am thinking of the cooling effect water can have.
If the stylus warms up the vinyl at the tiny contact area a bit above 80 d. Celcius which is the Glass Transition temperature (Tg) of vinyl and then as the stulus moves forward, the warmed up tiny vinyl area will start to cool down slowly mostly through the mass of vinyl and much less through air. This, with dry playing.
When water is in the grooves (wet playing), this cooling down will be more abrupt. Can this have an effect in vinyl’s molecular rearrangement around Tg?

George

I am pretty sure thats the reason that wetplay kill the records.

Next that water can go into the cantilever when it is hollow( capillar effect), thats rarely a good thing for durability and dust and dirt can stick better on stylus and cantilever.

 

[hhoyt]

Fomblin / Krytox

In my day job I use different viscosities of both Fomblin and Krytox in oil and grease form in high vacuum chambers. I second SY's statement that they do not harden; their extremely low vapor pressure that makes them ideal for vacuum lubrication also makes them quite stable with little volumetric reduction due to solvent loss.

If LAST indeed is a solution of fluorocarbon solvent and Fomblin, it is merely an interstitial lubricant between the stylus and vinyl. The downside to using this would be an enhanced tendency to retain dust compared to dry vinyl. I was always too scared to use it on precious LPs, having ruined a couple trying "wet playing." Plus, surface noise and wear have never been a limiting factor for me with good styli and quiet preamps.

Just my experience, YMMV...

Howie

Howard Hoyt
CE - WXYC-FM 89.3
UNC Chapel Hill, NC
WXYC Chapel Hill, North Carolina - 89.3 FM
1st on the internet

 

[sonidos]

I am so glad that I never tried the wet approach to my vinyl. After Armor All on my CD's, I was much more cautious on what I put on any disc.

Although I put baby oil on one Mo-Fi disc (why? I was all of 20, with acne, and an IQ of 20 to match!), the only cleaner that got it all out was Disc Doctor. Truly a horrible, horrible idea.