Once you get it working, replace the stylus. Old, worn styluses will not track properly. You should NOT have to put additional weight on the arm. If you do, there is something else going on that needs to be solved. Extra weight will simply make the record wear out sooner.  Just enough weight to keep the stylus needle from skipping is all you want.
 
I have heard about the toothpaste trick...since the paste is actually a polish. I'd be careful about using it because it is a polish and polish is used to remove the surface irregularities to get that polished look..... something you really don't want to do to a record's grooves. Remember, the high notes are very tiny grooves and polish takes them out first.
 
I suggest a gentle cleaning with a soft, lint free cloth and diluted mild dish detergent in plain water. Wipe in the direction of the grooves, not across them. Use a similar cloth to dry the disk completely. This will remove the loose dust and other debris but will not repair the nicks and scratches on the vinyl surface.  Rinse the damp cloth often in clean water.
 
I have a fairly nice JVC direct drive turntable. It has no belts on the drive motor. Very smooth operation and the drive has a speed control with a strobe to indicate the calibrated speed.

Hey Jimmy
 
Ive actually been looking at a way to get my hands on one without having to buy one.
We bought an old house (1926) that had a load of records boxed up in the basement.  I thought it would be neat to record them into SONAR and check out some of the old stuff and possibly see what is actually there.
 
We have a local store that is more of a hang out for the public that is all turn tables and records and everyone gathers and just plays some of the stuff available while they sit around, drink coffee or whatever and chat about the old times.
Figured I might give it a shot to see if I can rent a turntable to get done what I want to try

GuitarhackerI have heard about the toothpaste trick...since the paste is actually a polish. I'd be careful about using it because it is a polish and polish is used to remove the surface irregularities to get that polished look..... something you really don't want to do to a record's grooves. Remember, the high notes are very tiny grooves and polish takes them out first.
 

I'm sorry, I couldn't let this one go...
 
[pedantic]
1)
Toothpaste is an abrasive, not a polish.  Polish is soft and is designed to fill in the microscopic holes in a surface, leaving the surface smooth and shiny.
Abrasive contains particles of "hard" stuff (usually chalk in the case of toothpaste) which is designed to cut away the tops of microscopic lumps and bumps on a surface, leaving it smooth.  The exact opposite of polish.
 
2)
The are only 2 grooves in a record. One on each side.  High notes are not "very tiny gooves".  The single groove waves from side to side following the shape of the audio wave which produced it. The higher the frequency, the faster it waves side to side.
[/pedantic]
 
Cleaning a record with "polish" will slowly fill the grooves with hardened polish. On a Mono record you shouldn't loose too much, if any, high frequency because the wave shape of the groove will remain the same, but a stereo record encodes the left/right chanels as (left/right) and (up/down) rotated 45 degrees.  So the groove varies in depth.
As the groove fills with polish, the small changes in depth due to high frequency will get smoothed out and the high frequency will gradually be lost.
 
Cleaning with an abrasive (toothpaste) will introduce microscopic scratches into the surface of the grooves.  These will be picked up by the needle and reproduced as white noise (hiss).  The more you try to clean the record to remove the hiss, the worse the hiss will become.  In this case, polish would be the antidote...
 
The simple answer to cleaning a record is to use a damp cloth and or a solvent based cleaner that leaves no residue.

Thanks for the science, Karyn.  I just know that it worked for me so many years ago.  Don't know why or how, but I only needed to do it once to the offending LP it was not something that got repeated.  So, I think the abrasion was minimal.  

Karyn
On a Mono record you shouldn't loose too much, if any, high frequency because the wave shape of the groove will remain the same, but a stereo record encodes the left/right chanels as (left/right) and (up/down) rotated 45 degrees. 

[Even More Pendantic]
I believe you meant to say "lose" right?
[/Even More Pendantic]
 
Just thought I'd polish your reply up a bit without being too abrasive.

Karyn
...
The are only 2 grooves in a record. One on each side.  High notes are not "very tiny gooves".  The single groove waves from side to side following the shape of the audio wave which produced it. The higher the frequency, the faster it waves side to side.
[/pedantic]

Well I wanted to cheat. In at least one album THERE WERE 3 SIDES! And if the needle set on the wrong one, you heard the wrong comedy skit!
 
True story ... and I already kinda gave it away!
 
Now, name the album !!!

Rimshot
I had it stored for years and now when my son Alex wants to start listening to LP's it is kaputzsky.  It lights up but the plater is hard to turn.  Still has the rubber belt but after fiddling with it, I pronounce it dead.
 ...

My Pioneer PL12 lasted 30 years! ... I did buy in 1979 a Stanton EEE stylus (cost like $200 dollars then!) ... and that thing outlasted the turntable, but you could tell that it was suffering.
 
Replaced two belts in that time at $ 6.95 each or something like that.
 
So I sprung some money last year on a new turntable, and this time it was a nice one from Stanton, and will get the new/better cartridge around Christmas ... and in case you don't know the difference, on the old LP's, it was just like the old recording compared to the remastered things these days ... that great stylus and turntable made a difference ... and with my AMT-Heil speakers ... let me tell you what that Tangerine Dream sounded like ... and then Tomita's Firebird Suite ... and the remastered stuff that Edgar Froese has done of the early work, is STILL not half as good as the turntable with a great stylus on it.
 
Digital has its advantages ... but I think that it is STILL too young to do as well as the LP had become 30 years after it became popular and such. In that sense, Digital has another 10 years to go to improve, and it will!
 
But the incredible fidelity ... then ... can not be recreated, and as an example, Steven Wilson's redo of King Crimson's first album, made it so clean and full of Windex and Clorox, that the music lost its taste, value and beauty, for me! Steven did a great job making it sound cleaner ... but not very good job at making it sound better ... and that is a massive difference!

I posted this in the other thread about the turntable earthwire being too short. Seeing as you guys are talking about cleaning options I thought it might be of interest.
 
A very good system of record cleaning is here and it is Australian. This guy was on The Inventors here and won an award for it:
 
http://recordrevirginizer.com/index.html
 
You apply a coating on one side at a time and overnight it dries into a rubber like thing that you peel off the next morning and all the dirt and dust and stuff sticks to it and comes out when you peel it away. Completely harmless to the record.
 
Be aware of using strange things like toothpaste. Never heard of that. You would have to get it all well and truly out if you did not want your precious stylus to be scraping through and residue. Toothpaste is also abrasive and could damage the record groove if handled the wrong way.
 
This it the best way to do it if you have a some records that need cleaning and you are about to transfer. Of course there are also digital options that can remove surface noise clicks and plops etc...
 

And here is another general interest post from that same thread:
 
I have had a turntable for a very long time since the 70's. A Technics direct drive SL1300 Mk II fitted with its very own very nice arm. SME make the best headshells (super light) and the ultimate pickup for me is the Shure V15 Type III. (one of the finest pickup cartridges ever, tracking at 1 gram or under at 0.75) Ortofon also make an amazing cartridge too called the SL15Q. I have got a rather nice British RIAA equaliser preamp too worth over $1000 back then and it sounds like it too.
 
The last genuine Shure VN35E stylus cost me a cool $500! Enough to buy a decent DAW! The arm is so nice bearing wise if you balance the arm to be floating in the air and you blow a decent puff of air from 15 feet or so from the turntable the arm will respond a second or two later and swing in towards the centre. (standard Hi Fi test, can your arm do that!)
 
I have records that have only been played to this day on that system and they still sound the same now as they did back then. I have got a pristine copy of Dark Side of the Moon which is dead silent in the groove and the music sounds so clear and incredible. No clicks, plops or groove wall noise! Just the music and the music gets very quiet on that album at times too. It is at the other end of the spectrum in terms of noise.
 
Sheffield Labs albums from around the 80's that feature that direct link between a live studio recording and the cutting lathe sound incredible too. You would not believe how transient the record groove can be. Michael Jacksons' 'Thriller' sounds pretty cool too. All those live Miles Davis albums sound incredible as does early electronic music like Kraftwerk or Jean Michelle Jarre, Tangerine Dream. All sound pretty fat on vinyl.
 
I have picked up a copy of John Lennon's 'Double Fantasy' after reading that book 'Lennon' by Tim Riley. I am amazed at how fantastic that record sounds on my turntable. Lennon was pushing the boundaries of the late 70's sound or early 80's sound for sure. It is so funky in parts and the mix sounds killer.
 

Moshkiae

Karyn
...
The are only 2 grooves in a record. One on each side.  High notes are not "very tiny gooves".  The single groove waves from side to side following the shape of the audio wave which produced it. The higher the frequency, the faster it waves side to side.
[/pedantic]

Well I wanted to cheat. In at least one album THERE WERE 3 SIDES! And if the needle set on the wrong one, you heard the wrong comedy skit!
 
True story ... and I already kinda gave it away!
 
Now, name the album !!!

Monty Python's "Matching Tie & Handkerchief".