It seems the entire internet community were pulling out their old vinyl records this past week because of a post on reddit pointing to an audio forum detailing how to clean your vinyl using wood glue. It seems if you follow a few easy steps, you can easily clean your albums so thoroughly that you remove hisses and pops.
The whole processes seemed too easy, so I decided to pull out one of my unplayable records and test it out. Was it as easy as they said it would be?
It turns out, no, it isn’t. Especially if you’re as impatient as me. My attempts at using wood glue to clean my vinyl was a check list of what not to do. Here are my mistakes so you can avoid them.
Cover vinyl record evenly
To insure easy removal of the glue, you’ll need to make sure all the glue dries together into one solid piece. This can’t happen if you have drips and drops of glue by themselves. Make sure you smooth the glue out so you can remove the glue in one piece.
Add pull tabs before you apply glue
I noticed the guy in the guide placed pieces of tape on his record to make the removal process even easier. Once I smoothed the glue over the album, I placed two pieces of scotch tape on the edges. Bad idea!
The tape immediately shriveled and curled. Not only did they become brittle and tear before they pulled and glue off, they also prevented the glue under them from drying, leaving two wet glue islands on the vinyl when I attempted removal.
Not waiting long enough before attempting glue removal
I suppose it was my fault for reading the back of the glue bottle to check drying time. In a standard wood gluing situation, it should be dry in 30 minutes; however, when applying to vinyl records, drying time is 24 hours. I only waited 8 hours before I thought it was dry enough to attempt removal, which left a gummy, sticky, glue mess all over the vinyl.
Once I removed what I could, I left the rest to dry and came back the next day to try and remove the test of the glue. Because I had messed up so badly the day before, I had to scratch and pull with my fingernails to remove most of the glue. After 30 minutes, I gave up and reminded myself this was just a test album. There are bits and pieces of glue still on the record, so it’s needle-ruining unplayable right now.
Not using enough glue
As you can see in the above picture, there are areas that are only lightly coated with wood glue. Ideally the records should be totally covered. For my second attempt, I used over half the 4 oz bottle and it made all the difference.
The glue dries more even, removes easier, and leaves less artifacts the more you use. It appears to be better to use too much than to use too little.
So there you go. Be careful when using glue to clean your records. Start with a crappy record first so you can learn the technique before you cover Blonde on Blonde in wood glue.
How about you? How do you clean your vinyl collection?
