HOW WE ULTRASONICALLY CLEAN OUR SECOND HAND RECORDS
If you’ve bought an LP from Real Groovy you may have wondered what the orange sticker on the inner sleeve means. We want to make sure that when you buy a record from us, it sounds the best that it possibly can. So we clean almost all of the records that come through. We have two production lines with two ultrasonic cleaners per line. Most days, that’s 4 batches of 100 LPs or more. We use 5-disc machines because that’s the most that we can prewash safely, at once.
The first step once the record is out of the sleeve is the pre-wash. Fine brushes scrub both sides of 5 discs at a time. This removes any hard lumps of organic matter, fungus and tar. Because more than half of households had at least one smoker in the 50s and 60s, the tar in the smoke was electrostatically attracted to the vinyl. So with older discs, the prewash is an important step.
The records then go into the ultrasonic cleaners. High frequency transducers blast a 44 kilohertz signal into the water. On the surface of the disc, that causes cavitation – tiny vacuum bubbles that collapse faster than the speed of sound, and gently scour impurities off the surface of the record.
The last stage is rinsing in a special solution so that the records drain dry without water beading and leaving impurities. Finally, once completely dry, we put the record in a new sleeve – just like you don’t put your dirty underwear back on after you’ve showered!
You're probably wondering, can I ultrasonically clean my own records?
The answer is yes, you sure can! We have good variety of ultrasonic cleaners and cleaning accessories in stock online and in-store. Click the links below to shop now.