At one time, the thicker plastic sleeves were made of recycled plastic bags 
which had been used to ship bananas, or so anecdote has it.  They were 
somewhat impure as a result.  This may account for some of the problems.

The other is that the migration issue- plastinc to plastic- was initiated 
and/or accelerated by storage conditions.  Elevated temperatures and/or 
great pressure led to the sticky-sleeve syndrome.

One partial solution was elbow grease and those orange-based cleaning 
compounds.  Elwood McKee suggested this to me.  They got the surface 
discoloration off but had trouble extracting the plastic from the grooves. 
More pads, etc, improved things further.  There was a cost/time issue 
involved and I now use it only when the records are of consideable value. 
Unlike most such, graded visually, I play them.  In part, the stylus works 
like a shovel and gets out  (ot tells me I haven't gotten out) the rest of 
the stuff.

The Japanese-type semi-opaque paper sleeves seem ok.

Another problem is that some plastic sleeves were glued into the paper 
sleeves.  Heat in storage- well, you know the rest.

Steve Smolian


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Hirsch" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:34 AM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Gassy inner sleeves


> The recent thread on the risks plastic inner sleeves pose to LPs was
> interesting but left a few unanswered questions in my mind.
>
> What about those "audiophile" sleeves, like Nagaoka and others? I am not a
> chemist, but I am sure that some on this list might have more specific
> information on what kind of polymer interacts harmfully with vinyl discs 
> and
> what sort (if any) is inert.
>
> Some have posted their choice of paper over plastic of any kind. Has this 
> been
> tested out on any large scale (say, at an instititution with 10s of 
> thousands
> of records or more) or is this just anectdotal, drawn from personal
> experience? Either sort of information is of interest to me, but it would 
> be
> useful to know what sort of basis was used for recommending one over the
> other. If there has been any large scale trial, was there any conclusion 
> drawn
> on the merits of acid-free sleeves or on the use of rice paper versus the 
> run
> of the mill sort found in most commercially issued LPs?
>
> Somewhat related, I am also wondering if using a static electricity 
> discharger
> makes a significant effect on the longterm health of discs and whether the
> crucial time for de-stating is before shelving the record or when you are
> about to play it. I guess one ought to do both just to play safe, but I am 
> not
> savvy enough to know whether or not how long the disc sits on the shelf in 
> a
> charged state makes a bit of difference.
>
> My experience with long term storage of recorded media (I have been 
> dragging
> around some elements of my collection since the mid-60s) confirms that 
> one's
> mileage is bound to vary from the scientifically derived benchmarks (for
> example: all of my cassettes, even cheapo 30 year old ones, are still 
> playing
> just fine on my less than professional quality decks, though I know that 
> this
> should not be so), but it would be good to know if there are any 
> benchmarks in
> this area,
>
> Just a few tech questions from a non-tech mind.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Peter Hirsch
> [log in to unmask]
> (212) 569-8716 - home
> (212) 714-8570 work (NYPL)
>
>
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