In a quest to find a way to clean a couple of boxes of my records that got very moldy (mildew), I have found a method I have not read about elsewhere which seems to have worked when other tried-and-true methods did not work for me. I want to share it in case it will help someone else. I think I may have found a method that will restore records that have been in a bad state for many years. The records I have cleaned and seem to have brought back to perfect playing condition were covered in mildew for six years. The records went slowly from wet to dry over a long period of time.
First, a description of how the records got into a bad condition and a description of what I started with.
I had two cardboard boxes of records sitting on the basement floor. Each box contained about 75 to 100 records stored vertically in the boxes. The records and jackets were mostly new or almost new, but there were a few that I had bought used at record sales. A few of the records were still sealed. Some records, sealed or not, still had the original cellophane over the jacket, but 90% did not. Albums from Mobile Fidelity, Reference Recordings, Angel, RCA Victor, Warner Bros., Geffen Records, etc.mostly from the 1980s and early 1990s. Almost all the records were still in the original inner sleeves which were of various materials ranging from paper to high quality archival HDPE sleeves.
My city was struck by a 100-year flood in August, 2018. My home had never had water in the basement and I simply was not worried. I should have been. Three months after that heavy rain I went into the basement and found that some water had come into the basement to a depth of perhaps 1/4" or 1/2", hard to tell exactly. The two boxes of records had sat in that water for as long as it remained in the basement. There was no water in the basement at that time, but boxes sitting on the floor still had wet bottoms. I tipped the boxes of records on their sides so the bottoms would dry. I did not have time or energy to deal with all those wet records, and they sat there in the unopened boxes until late 2022.
In 2022, I pulled the records from the boxes. If two adjacent records remained in their cellophane wrappers they could be pulled apart, but there was virtually no record jacket without a cellophane wrapper that was not stuck to the jacket next to it, so record after record had to be ripped apart from the record next to it, destroying the jackets. I looked at a few of the records, pulling them from the jackets and inner sleeves. An odor of mildew came off every record I pulled out, and every record I looked at showed at least a couple of small patches of mildew. The worst ones seemed caked with mildew inside the sleeves. Pretty disgusting. After looking at a dozen or so, I leaned them all against a wall in a corner where I could get at them one by one to clean them.
I spent time researching how to clean records and found three methods that seemed to have promise for restoring the records to playability, but during this search I saw more than once comments to the effect that if a record has been moldy for a long time it may not be possible to restore it. Thus, I was not very hopeful, but I persevered.
The three methods that seemed worth investigating were:
1. Handcleaning using a well-researched method devised by Neil Antin, and available here: https://thevinylpress.com/app/uploads/2024/03/PACVR_3rd-Ed-Ch1_2024-03.pdf
2. Ultrasonic record-cleaning machines (USC)
3. Wood glue record cleaning method. No particular reference, but here is one:
For initial evaluation of the results of a method, I looked at the record under a 60x jeweler's loupe with LED illumination, readily available from amazon.com for a few dollars. That magnification is not enough to see individual mold spores or mold organisms, but one can easily distinguish the grooves and flat space between them, and the reflections from inside the grooves such as there may be. I was looking for any signs of grooves that were "clogged" with mold.
First, a description of how the records got into a bad condition and a description of what I started with.
I had two cardboard boxes of records sitting on the basement floor. Each box contained about 75 to 100 records stored vertically in the boxes. The records and jackets were mostly new or almost new, but there were a few that I had bought used at record sales. A few of the records were still sealed. Some records, sealed or not, still had the original cellophane over the jacket, but 90% did not. Albums from Mobile Fidelity, Reference Recordings, Angel, RCA Victor, Warner Bros., Geffen Records, etc.mostly from the 1980s and early 1990s. Almost all the records were still in the original inner sleeves which were of various materials ranging from paper to high quality archival HDPE sleeves.
My city was struck by a 100-year flood in August, 2018. My home had never had water in the basement and I simply was not worried. I should have been. Three months after that heavy rain I went into the basement and found that some water had come into the basement to a depth of perhaps 1/4" or 1/2", hard to tell exactly. The two boxes of records had sat in that water for as long as it remained in the basement. There was no water in the basement at that time, but boxes sitting on the floor still had wet bottoms. I tipped the boxes of records on their sides so the bottoms would dry. I did not have time or energy to deal with all those wet records, and they sat there in the unopened boxes until late 2022.
In 2022, I pulled the records from the boxes. If two adjacent records remained in their cellophane wrappers they could be pulled apart, but there was virtually no record jacket without a cellophane wrapper that was not stuck to the jacket next to it, so record after record had to be ripped apart from the record next to it, destroying the jackets. I looked at a few of the records, pulling them from the jackets and inner sleeves. An odor of mildew came off every record I pulled out, and every record I looked at showed at least a couple of small patches of mildew. The worst ones seemed caked with mildew inside the sleeves. Pretty disgusting. After looking at a dozen or so, I leaned them all against a wall in a corner where I could get at them one by one to clean them.
I spent time researching how to clean records and found three methods that seemed to have promise for restoring the records to playability, but during this search I saw more than once comments to the effect that if a record has been moldy for a long time it may not be possible to restore it. Thus, I was not very hopeful, but I persevered.
The three methods that seemed worth investigating were:
1. Handcleaning using a well-researched method devised by Neil Antin, and available here: https://thevinylpress.com/app/uploads/2024/03/PACVR_3rd-Ed-Ch1_2024-03.pdf
2. Ultrasonic record-cleaning machines (USC)
3. Wood glue record cleaning method. No particular reference, but here is one:
For initial evaluation of the results of a method, I looked at the record under a 60x jeweler's loupe with LED illumination, readily available from amazon.com for a few dollars. That magnification is not enough to see individual mold spores or mold organisms, but one can easily distinguish the grooves and flat space between them, and the reflections from inside the grooves such as there may be. I was looking for any signs of grooves that were "clogged" with mold.
