The art form of tattooing has a rich history throughout the decades, but so does the machine that is used as the primary tool of creative artists throughout the world. Tattoo equipment, just like the art form itself, has seen many evolutions throughout the years. While at one point ancient tattooers used natural components to create needles strong enough to penetrate the skin, with the invention of electricity, the modern era of tattooing has brought along with it the power of hand-held machines.
A little known fact is that the predecessor of the modern day tattoo machine was the electric pen, invented by Thomas Edison and patented under “stencil-pens” in New Jersey in the year 1876. While it was originally intended to be a duplication device, in 1891, Samuel O’Reilly quickly found out that Thomas Edison’s machine could be modified to be used in tattooing. It was then that this modified electric pen was patented with a tube and needle system that fed ink into a reservoir.
The original tattoo machines were rotary systems, where as the tattoo machines of the most recent years use electromagnets to function. These machines rely on dual coils, rather than a single coil machine that was put on patent by Thomas Riley in London, twenty days after the original patent of the rotary machine was filed. But, do you know where Riley got the materials to build such a machine? Well, he modified a doorbell assembly inside of a brass box. This of course was the leading lady to the dual-coil machines we see today, which was patented by Alfred Charles South of London.
The one drawback to these dual-coil machines is the fact that they can be very top-heavy and can be hard on the hand. For this reason, a spring was often attached to the top of the machine to the ceiling to take off the pressure. Further tweaking of the form of the machine ultimately led to a much lighter, more reliable machine that relieves the tattoo artist’s hands of extreme fatigue.
Ultimately in the history of tattooing, machines were fine-tuned to specialties. This is why you’ll find your artist reaching for a second machine after finishing the line work. Liner tattoo machines tend to be more heavy set than shaders to steady the line. However, when an artist shades, they need the freedom that a little less weight can provide.
Liner machines are meant to create one single pass of ink in the skin to create a dominant line (outline) these machines typically use a short contact circuit that is about 1.5mm-2mm, which causes the machine to cycle much faster. The faster the movement of the needles, the more ink that is pushed into the skin in a single pass.
The coil machine is the most common of tattoo machines on the market. They use electromagnetic circuits to move the needle grouping through the back tube. There are however, many different variations of coil machines such as single, double, and triple coil machines.
The shader machine is used for the fill-work in tattoos. The saturation level of this machine is going to be lower than that of the liner, as it is set to move a bit slower. The contact gap is going to be much larger than a liner, set at 2mm to 3.5 mm, to make it cycle at a slower pace. These machines are also a helpful tool in sculpting lines, rather than running it over again with a liner that may cause more trauma to the skin.
Pneumatic tattoo machine:
This is the new girl on the block; pneumatic tattoo machines first hit the tattoo community around 2000. This machine is powered by an air compressor and is beloved for the light weight and super quiet purr of the machine. Another major perk of the pneumatic tattoo machine is that it can be completely sterilized in an autoclave without having to worry about any major disassembly.