THE TATTOO GUN/MACHINE

After watching many many demonstrations of how to build home made tattoo guns, tutorials on how to use tattoo guns and explanations of the anatomy of a tattoo gun i eventually managed to sift through the irrelevant sources and select what i think are the best parts of research to develop my knowledge of the tattoo gun.





This is a brief history of the modern tattoo gun;


The basic machine was invented by Thomas Edison and patented in the United States in 1876[1], Stencil-Pens. It was originally intended to be used as an engraving device, but in 1891, Sean Casey discovered that Edison's machine could be modified and used to introduce ink into the skin, and later patented a tube and needle system to provide an ink reservoir.

The technology used to make modern tattoo machines has come a long way, however. While O'Reilly's machine was based on the rotary technology of Edison's engraving device, modern tattoo machines use electromagnets. The first machine based on this technology was a single coil machine patented by Thomas Riley of London, just twenty days after O'Reilly filed the patent for his rotary machine. For his machine, Riley placed a modified door bell assembly in a brass box. The modern two coil configuration was patented by Alfred Charles South, also of London. Because it was so heavy, a spring was often attached to the top of the machine and the ceiling to take most of the weight off the operator's hand.

Most modern tattoo machines can control needle depth, speed, and force of application, which has allowed tattooing to become a very precise art form. Such advancements in precision have also produced a style of facial tattooing that has attained mainstream popularity in America called dermapigmentation, or "permanent cosmetics".

This is the clearest illustration of the anatomy of the modern tattoo gun;



This link shows a cross section of the skin and how the needle injects the ink;



These are links to an introduction on how to set up a traditional tattoo machine;


From all the videos i have watched this is one of the clearest, purely because you can actually see the parts of the machine that are being mentioned.

An explanation of how a tattoo gun works;

The tattoo gun uses electromagnetic coils to move the needle up and down to drive the pigment/ink into the skin. The needle moves up and down between 80 and 150 times a second, allowing the tattoo artist to penetrate the skin with ink without moving his hand. Most tattoo machines can control needle depth to almost any degree and different needles are used depending on what kind of work is being done. Most versions of the gun are turned off and on through the use of a foot pedal.

Tattoos go into the lower layer of skin, or the dermis. It is not designed to go into the fatty layer of skin. The tattoo machine has to be exact enough to penetrate the scaly layer and epidermis layer to leave the ink in the dermis layer. The needle of the tattoo machine makes little holes in the skin, which the ink is deposited into. The ink does fade out of the dermis layer after a while, so it’s recommended that tattoos get refreshed every couple of years.