Unknown hardened fluid in record grooves- could only be cracked up with the needle

[Walter66]

Own a new old LP, maybe an old pressing, 1969.
After the usual routine with isopropylene alcohol cleaning, there was much cracking audible and I thought this record would be lost.
But after playing the first side, a yellow material came out of the grooves and showed up on the surface in small flackes all over the record.
That means, it couldn't be washed out with the alcohol and resisted. Only the hard diamond could crack the surface up and made the material come out to show on the surface.
I don't know what this is, but the usual record cleaner from the past it couldn't be.
After the hardened material came out, the record is still listenable with much joy.

 

[mtemur]

Own a new old LP, maybe an old pressing, 1969.
After the usual routine with isopropylene alcohol cleaning, there was much cracking audible and I thought this record would be lost.
But after playing the first side, a yellow material came out of the grooves and showed up on the surface in small flackes all over the record.
That means, it couldn't be washed out with the alcohol and resisted. Only the hard diamond could crack the surface up and made the material come out to show on the surface.
I don't know what this is, but the usual record cleaner from the past it couldn't be.
After the hardened material came out, the record is still listenable with much joy. View attachment 99555

It’s fungus accumulated in the grooves over the years. When you’ve used alcohol it softened the dirt and stylus carved it out. It happened to me a couple of times around 15 years ago when I used gruv glide on old, unwashed records. Once I figured out what’s going on I started thoroughly cleaning records and using alcohol based static eliminators such as gruv glide afterwards. It’s never happened again.

 

[tima]

Instead of IPA (which I have used), try Tergitol 15-S-9.

Tergitol Surfactant

Tergitol 15-S-3, and Tergitol 15-S-9 Surfactants are nonionic surfactant which are ideally suited for many cleaning applications. The S-3 is oil soluble, and the S-9 is water soluble. This product is a mixture of linear secondary alcohols reacted with ethylene oxide. The general formula is...

www.talasonline.com

Everything you ever wanted to know about clearning records is in the 3rd edition of Neil Antin's compendium (pdf) from Bill Hart's Web site, 'The Vinyl Press' :

Precision Aqueous Cleaning of Vinyl Records,
by Neil Antin

 

[Walter66]

That's an excellent source of information about cleaning records, have to study this, thank you so much for the link.