diy record cleaning brush - it works!!

[federico moreno]

Hi all. I have a pair of standard carbon fibre brushes -one from Lenco, another from Stanton-; the work well for dry cleaning, don´t scratch records, have an antistatic propertie, and are good for ¨casual sweeping¨ of dust and loose debris.
I was wondering about some brush to perform wet cleaning in a not motorized fashion -that is, with no cleaning machine, because I haven´t one and because I have no experience with these-, but sometimes is hard to find good brushes -soft ones, with the right lenght of bristle, etc.-; I have tried some nylon bristle, some pig bristle, velvet and god knows what more, with mixed results. None of those were stellar performers, I think that because the bristles weren´t tiny enough to dig deep in the groove.
But a couple of weeks ago I find, for mere chance, an optimum material for the task.
I don´t know if that mat is available in the rest of the world; here in my country is commonly used to seal the space that remains in the separation between sliding aluminium frame windows, and is called ¨polypropylene felt¨ by window makers. I think that is a very generic item, so maybe you get the chance to obtain some and try it in your own records.
That material is a long ribbon of syntethic fabric with a very soft feltlike material attached to one of it faces; well, not exactly velvet, but a mesh of very tiny and short fibers of minuscule diameter.
I have taken some 20 cm of one of my windows, cut it in two strips of 10 cm, and attach them to a piece of acrylic with some super glue -to provide some sort of handle-. Well, the homemade brush performs very, very well. You can feel the fibers ¨biting¨ the groove, and removing a lot of debris that you wouldn´t noticed otherwise.
I have noticed no signs of scratching in the disks so treated, and apparently the fibers do no harm to the vinyl.
If you combine the brush with some liquid record cleaner -I brew mine with distilled and filtered water, isopropyl and a touch of surfactant- , and a deep rinse with lukewarm water (using the same brush to transport the water from the receptacle to the record surface), the results are amazing.
You must be very careful and patient, trying to avoid an excessive amount of water to reach the label, holding the disc in vertical position so the water flows easily taking away loose debris, etc. But it pays. In great form.
Cheers