Karyn

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.

1. the difference between an abrasive and a polish is the size of the abrasive particles. Not the hardness of the particles. I just bought a headlight restore kit and it starts with 2000 grit wet disk, moves to 3000 grit wet disk, and then to a polishing compound with even finer grit in a paste. Have you ever used a rock tumbler to polish rocks and gem stones?
 
2. yes there is one groove per side. the sides of the groove have bumps and ridges and the higher the frequency of a passage or note, the closer those ridges and bumps on the sides of the groove tend to be and they are smaller as a result..... any abrasive will start to remove the smallest ones first, and will round them off thereby reducing the high frequency in the content. Use enough of the polish and often enough and you will polish out the larger ones too.
 
Using any sort of polish or abrasive on a vinyl recording will at best degrade the quality and at worse, damage the vinyl worse than it is.
 
Best policy is to handle the vinyl disk with caution... touching only the sides, keeping fingerprints off the surface, stopping the turntable before placing the disk on or removing it from the platter, keeping the disk in the cover and dust sleeve, keeping the platter dust free cleaning it before using it, and not leaving the vinyl disk on the platter when not being played. It's fine to use a damp lint free cloth to clean the disk when necessary.
 
Of course, not too may of us followed these rules for vinyl handling when we were buying and playing vinyl disks.

craigb

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.

I'm 3/4 Polish. Will I fill up the groove in 3/4 time?

I have a circa eraly 70's Techniques turntable.
 
Now I'm wondering if it even works.
 

You might mean Technics. It could well be a pretty decent model. Fire it up and see if it still functions. There are still some guys on ebay that have Technics turntable parts so if something does need replacing it may well be available. It will be better built than any cheap turntable today. All you need is the best pickup you can afford in it and a new stylus. Unless current cartridge/stylus is good.The quality of the cartridge makes an immense difference in what you hear. The Shure V15 III was in a class of its own. (headshells also effect the quality of what you hear)
 
The quality of the RIAA equaliser is important. Many Hi Fi amps are fitted with one and they are of a reasonable standard. But an expensive one sounds very nice indeed and quite better.
 
I have got an arm with a beautiful lifting mechanism and at the end of the record the arm lifts too and is returned rather nicely. Good for falling asleep. (or getting distracted!) The lifter broke once and when I went inside it I found a rather large dead spider had interfered with it. A small belt broke but I found the exact thing in an old VHS machine. But after that I found out about the guys that had the parts too which was reassuring.
 
I have been handling my vinyl all its life the way Herb suggests is the ultimate way and most of my records are noiseless. It is rather incredible how quiet they are. Lifting in and out of the record is also important as to how much noise gets introduced over time. Each poor drop onto a side results in some sort of damage and hence a sound plop later.