Vinyl Vac 33 - Vinyl Record Cleaning Kit- Record Vacuum Wand for Deep Cleaning (Attaches to Your Wet Dry Vacuum Hose, U.S. Standard 1.25" & 1.5")

This is an excellent and downright amazing product. Once i saw it i knew i could make my own for less, but i ordered it anyhow to support the inventor and save time. All my various other methods of cleaning records over the years were incomplete without actually sucking the grunge out of the grooves, but i didnt want to spend hundreds, even thousands on a professional machine to clean my collection of mostly $1-10 valued albums.I spent many hours researching and trying many cleaning methods before buying this vacuum attachment. I ended up implementing this plus the VinylStyl Deep Groove which is comparable to the Spin Clean, but i feel better designed and carried out. You can also scrub your records with a soft brush and plain soap in the sink (the center labels are very water-resistant) but without sucking out that dirty water or fluid from whatever washing you give the record, theres still going to be stuff in the grooves. High water pressure might get most of it out but vacuuming seems superior to me becasue water pressure may just lodge things in there further. Since a record groove is approximately 1/10th the size of a human hair, i dont believe there is a brush around that would reach in, so vacuuming is your best bet. The difference can be HEARD as well as seen. I have records that came from houses of chain smokers, stored in dusty New Mexico garages, etc and i feel the Vinyl Vac will best take care of them all. I think i even prefer it to the $4000 ultrasonic automatic machine becasue im sort of a gearhead and i actually enjoy the manual operation of my setup, and cleaning and listening to records is theraputic :). Plus with running the vacuum every minute or so i have a reason to turn it up LOUD!The attachment comes with felt strips that are glued to both sides of the suction opening which prevent the hard plastic from riding on the record surface as you move/spin/turn it. Its designed for use right on your turntable but i actually got a spare broken turntable at goodwill to use strictly as a cleaning deck so everything can be done right on the kitchen island. I hold this cleaner steady, with the drilled "pivot" hole resting over the turntable spindle, and i lower the tube part parallel and it sucks itself right onto the record surface, then i spin the record on its platter slowly both directions. There are spare felt pads in the kit. Ive cleaned about 75 records and the felt still looks brand new. It also comes with vacuum reducers to insert inline after the hose, but i think its perfect without them using my 2.0hp small shop vac. It also comes with felt washers to protect the label as you spin the record, but this is the weakest part of the engineering. Within 1 second the felt washer was sucked straight through the spindle hole and i had to get it out of the vacuum. This is partly because the hole is almost 2x bigger than a standard record spindle for some reason. So i had to set a metal washer over to weigh down the felt washer. Luckily i had one lying around that was thin enough not to mess up the angle of the tube--it probably causes about a 3-degree angle. The shop vac power helps it still securely "vacuum" itself to the record even though the metal washer lifting the spindle area keeps the rest of the tube those few degrees from parallel. It actually lifts the vinyl of a 33. For 78s you may have to come up with something thinner. Not a big deal, but im not sure how the felt washer held up during product testing. Its a minor issue and im keeping my eyes open for something else lying around thats thinner than the washer. Since this thing is almost all funtion over looks, I'm thinking about just modifying a cottage cheese container lid or something....it needs to be about that thin. Depite that issue this is still one of the coolest inventions ive ever gotten my hands on and for $110 total i believe i have the best record cleaning system possible.

I have an immense record collection from high school and college, which has grown over the years by inheriting collections from others, as well as thrift store/used record store finds and some new 180-gram purchases. When I bit the bullet and bought a restored Thorens turntable, I didn’t want to wear down the fine-tuned motor, band, and spindle on record cleaning. (It is designed for minimal vibration and audiophile sound, not cleaning pressure). So I extensively researched and tried many different record cleaning options. In addition to the old Discwasher-style cleaning brush, I tried the Nitty Gritty, Oki Noki, wood glue (surprisingly effective, but impractical), dishwashing soap, Windex (don’t try it-ammonia slightly dissolves and gums up records), as well as an elaborate ultrasonic cleaning setup with the Cleaner Vinyl attachments (works well, but overkill and impractical for daily cleaning). I have settled on this doohickey as the core of the best system.I use this attachment with a dedicated $40 “Stinger” wet-dry vacuum. I also repurposed an old low-end Gemini turntable and converted it into a dedicated record-cleaning station. (The old direct drive turntable motor works, but the electronics and stabilzation of the turntable were not great, so it was a perfect repurpose). I also make my own fluid out of alcohol, distilled water, and a drop of liquid dishwashing soap (merely to break surface tension; otherwise, the water/alcohol mix would just bead on the record and wouldn’t get into the grooves). I wet-clean with an old LAST or Discwasher velvet brush, then use this vacuum attachment merely to suck it all up after being soaked and wet cleaned: the older the record, the more I wet-clean before using the vacuum. Together, the items cost less than one-third the price of a Nitty Gritty/OkiNoki.This setup works perfectly: even better than the pricier vacuum record cleaner units. It is not as automatic as the Nitty Gritty or OkiNoki, but the suction is better/stronger even with an inexpensive $40 vacuum, so it pulls up microscopic dirt best. I can also control how much suction it uses by lifting up on the attachment: heavier pressure initially, then lighter pressure to get any microscopic remnants before I slowly lift it off: thus no “dirt line” at the point where I lifted off. I can also turn the turntable motor off and rotate both the wet-cleaning brush and the vacuum attachment backwards and forwards to suck up dirt that might remain trapped if it were only cleaned in one direction. The whole process takes only a couple of minutes per album, and it makes them look brand new.The materials are simple. But it works. The PVC pipe, glue and velvet they use are good quality. I have cleaned over a hundred records with this system in the past two years, and there is no visible wear on the velvet brush. Some old records are scratched and can’t be improved by cleaning, but it has revived many thrift store purchases to near-perfect near-mint sound quality.