PeteLeoni wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 5:47 pm
Yes I know we shouldn't play plastic 78s on a "real Victrola" but here is the thing.
They go from ****not playable****and instantly dragging down the motor to....
****playing easily!****after the application!
Played a few of those "throwaway" sound-alike "3 songs per side" 78s several times each with no issues or discernable wear (at least on my VV-80 with a freshly rebuilt #2 head)
In my opinion WD-40 is also fine on shellac 78s. I have some that I treated this way in the mid-70 and they did not disintegrate or degrade.
I digress, my tip is you can play the plastic 78s in a pinch after WD-40 treatment.
I also suspect the WD-40 is at least easing wear on all records its used on. Yes, don't get it on the label, yes let them dry before re-sleeving them.
No, don't put in on your Robert Johnson prized records ect.
I also won't put it on my Lucille Bogan records because it cleans up the lyrics can't have that! (-:
I do not know what the ultimate long term effect of applying WD-40 to shellac or vinyl records is. My best guess is that it is probably not good. WD-40 is a fairly effective solvent in addition to being a lubricant, which is why it works so well as a penetrating oil.
I do know, from personal experience, that applying lubricants to records can be helpful in getting badly worn records to play on acoustic machines--there is a reduction in drag and pronounced reduction in noise. I have never tried ibota wax, but many here swear by it. I have have used Carnauba (palm) wax occasionally to great effect. I have seen videos of people recommending applying bees' wax to repaired cracked or reassembled broken shellac records. I have tried this, too, but it does not seem any more effective than Carnauba wax, and it is much harder to apply and leaves a messy looking finish.
One of the problems with lubricants (I cannot speak for all lubricants, such as ibota wax) is that they are a major
PITA if you want to play a treated record again on a modern turntable. An amazing amount of crud builds up quickly on the stylus, the sound quickly becomes fuzzy, and the tone arm starts to skip and wander about the record because the ball of crud lifts the stylus up out of the record groove. I then have to spend 10 to 15 minutes with a jeweller's loupe, a cleaning solution (Diskwasher fluid seems to work OK), and various brushes (the old Cecil Watts flat things with a modest amount of cleaner first, a Project carbon fibre thing, and a number of other brushes or varying stiffness and bristle length). I have spent hours soap-and-water scrubbing some newly acquired "treated" records on my OkkiNokki cleaning machine in order to make them playable again on my modern turntable--these are electrically recorded disks in otherwise excellent condition for which there was no good reason to treat them in the first place.
The same
problem with crud build up from treated records occurs with needles on acoustic machines, except that it isn't really a problem here. Needles don't/shouldn't get reused, and there is a huge difference in tracking force--my modern turntable tracks at 4.75 grams--my Aeolian Vocalion machine tracks at about 165 grams.
I have never used WD-40 on a record, but I suspect that I have seen its effect on records that I have acquired, and if I am right in my suspicion, the effect isn't entirely pretty.
I treat records, repaired records and badly worn records, with Carnauba wax, because it is what I have and because it seems to work OK. Its use is a prison sentence to a life of acoustic playback for the treated record. Cracked and broken records that I have repaired do not come near my expensive 78 styluses anyway.
I set my favourite Beniamino Gigli 78 gently down on the platter of my modern turntable one day, and then while I was turning on the amp and adjusting the controls, there was a loud crack noise. My treasured record spontaneously split. I glued up the crack with Weldbond glue (a skill I learned here). It now only gets acoustic play. It has been treated with wax. Despite it being an electrically recorded disk, it does not seem to have suffered a lot from extensive play on my acoustic machines. So, I would say, yes, lubricants protect later 78s from the full damage they might otherwise receive from an acoustic machine.