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Cleaning the applicator wands – will soapy water hurt the vinyl? -B.A.

The instructions insert that comes with the record cleaner states that the way to clean the applicator wands is to place them in a dish of warm water with a drop or 2 of liquid dish soap and then rinse. This seems strange to me. Wouldn’t the dish soap leave a residue in the wands? I am concerned that it would transfer to my valuable lps and screw them up in some way. What’s your answer on this issue?

Regards, B.A.

The answer to your question is the following:  By calling for only a drop or two of dish-washing soap in a bowl of water, we are ensuring a very dilute solution in which to soak and loosen the offending contamination from the applicators.  When the process is completed with a complete rinse, no measurable amount of soap is retained by the applicators, and they can continue to be used successfully again.

Thank you for your query, Walter Davies

We suggest that the rinse should be done with distilled water, as available inexpensively at your grocery store. While we use industrially purified water for blending our formulas at The LAST Factory, we have tested many brands of distilled water and they are actually quite good. Purification done at the commercial level required to create cheap grocery store distilled water is surprisingly effective.