This months stereophile (may2009) has a review of a Keith Monks record cleaner, an amazing product but a little out of my price range at $4,000.

I’ve been using a home brew record cleaning solution for a while now and an improvised turntable and shop vac system to clean records. After reading the review of the Keith Monks cleaner I think I want to build an upgrade.

I found a great site http://www.soundfountain.com/amb/rc1.html that breaks down the operation of the Monks cleaner and has some great pictures of the compressor setup of the brushes and vacuum system.

Here’s a cleaner recipe and diagrams from the soundfountian site. It’s very similar to the recipe I blogged here

2 liter distilled water
1 liter alcohol
1/2 liter isopropyl alcohol
20 to 30 drops of liquid detergent

The number of drops depends on the effectiveness of the washing detergent.

Here are the compressor and cleaning fluid containers

Home brew diagram
Monks Diagram
I think I can develop something between the homebrew and monks machine.